


When Angels Fall

by DarkKnightDan



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Budding Relationship, Developing Relationship, F/F, First Love, First Relationships, Flashbacks, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Friendship/Love, Healing, Injury Recovery, My First Work in This Fandom, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Out-of-Comfort, Pharmercy, Pharmercy-Relationship, Recovery, Self-Doubt, Self-Reflection, Shipping, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-15
Updated: 2017-02-23
Packaged: 2018-09-17 13:39:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 17
Words: 27,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9327179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkKnightDan/pseuds/DarkKnightDan
Summary: The day that you fell, everything changed. I couldn't look at you as the same woman that you were, even when you yourself said that you hadn't changed. You were too fragile, after that, after I had failed to catch you.I won't let you fall again.*Updated daily





	1. Angels Fall

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Anon76](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anon76/gifts).



Angels Fall

The only light in the room was pale silver, broken up by the blinds that hung over the window. The light that managed to stream through fell onto the bed, though not high enough to illuminate the face of the person who lay there. The only sound was that of a heartbeat monitor, beeping steadily; though the volume of the machine had been turned down, sparing my sanity. 

Pale could not even begin to describe the seemingly-lifeless woman that lay in front of me. Eyes closed, lips set into a placid expression that was somehow unnerving, she looked nothing like herself; not without the kind smile playing on her lips, or her blue eyes shining with amusement at even the slightest coaxing. 

There wasn't much sense to sitting here, that's what the doctors had said. It wasn't like there was anything that a soldier could do in the way of healing, especially not just by sitting in a room. They had suggested that I leave, offering to call if, when, something changed.

Listening, unfortunately, had swiftly left my repertoire of skills since the currently unconscious woman in the bed had floated into my life. Instead of walking out of the hospital, I requested a chair. In what could only be a move to spite me, force me out, they brought what could only be described as one of the most uncomfortable chairs in existence. 

Luckily for me, discomfort had become somewhat of a staple on a day-to-day basis. Everything from the suit that allowed flight during battle, to the heat of a rocket launcher in my hands further allowed me to adjust to discomfort. So, the chair had been taken without complaint. Nearly eight hours later, I had still failed to find a comfortable manner in which to sit. 

"They should take a page from your book, when it comes to office furniture." Talking to empty air, of course, didn't earn much of a reply, instead only allowing for a full realization of just how silent the room had become. Angela's quiet breath was still there, and it swiftly became my focus. Each shaky inhale, each pained exhale caused my heart to ache. As visions of what had transpired just hours ago replayed in front of my eyes.

Above the battlefield, everything was as it usually was supposed to go. The rocket launcher kicked in my grip, the combined heat of both it and the thrusters keeping my frame aloft causing a sweat to break on my brow. Far below the sound of small-arms fire could be heard and, occasionally, quips that only displayed just how relaxed the team usually was in the heat of battle.

In that momentary lack of focus, a bullet punched through one of the weaker points of the suit of armor that kept me aloft, thankfully missing the gas tank or anything else that would have resulted in an injury that Angela would have been unable to heal. The pain was dulled near-instantly as the warm radiance of Angela Ziegler's, rather, Mercy's, Caduceus Staff engaged its healing stream. The bullet was forced from the hole it had made, and the hole it had created was sealed. During this whole process I continued firing my rockets as though nothing had happened, as my body had taken countless bullets since starting to take on missions with Angela.

With my wound healed, Angela went to drift back down when, suddenly, there was a loud crack that only told me something had gone wrong. My gaze shifted to the battlefield to where Angela had just been, to find that she no longer lingered in the air next to me. Rather, she lay on the pavement below, the mechanical wings that allowed her to float up to my position splayed out, limp under her body. Her head was back against the pavement, eyes closed. The halo that she wore lay next to her head, her staff a few feet away, she didn't move.

Within a moment, two of our teammates were on her, and my own descent put me down right next to where Angela lay. "What happened?" I asked to nobody in particular, hoping somebody had seen what exactly had transpired as my fingers closed around Angela's staff, pulling it back as my hands fumbled around the rod, searching for the button that would activate the healing stream. My eyes remained locked on Angela though, mostly on the fact that she wasn't breathing, which sent my mind into a panic that didn't help my efforts to find the sought-after button. 

A pair of calm hands gently took the staff out to my hands, belonging to our strike team leader, who directed the healing stream toward Angela as though he had worked the staff a myriad of times before. As he did this, the rest of our team continued to provide a semblance of covering fire in order to allow Jack to do his best to revive Angela. It took a minute, but she suddenly inhaled deeply, but her eyes didn't open.

With Angela returned to the land of the living, Jack through the staff back my way, and turned to assist our teammates in returning fire on those who were pressing down on us. "Give us some support, and we can get her to a hospital." He called over his shoulder before ducking into cover. In response, I flicked the visor down on my helmet and rocketed off into the air after taking a step back to ensure Angela's safety. 

My rockets made quick work of those who lingered behind cars and other destructible cover. If my rockets didn't bring them to their death, then my teammates' complementary fire ushered them along into the next life. 

Once they had been dispatched, we'd made our way to our exfiltration point, boarding the helicopter that had been assigned to us at the beginning of the operation. My launcher was joined by Jack's rifle as he carried Angela to the helicopter, a task I had wished to take up until Jack had talked me down, insisting that he would be able to carry her with more ease. My protests had proven futile, as he'd picked up Angela, and carried her to the helicopter.

The others on the team had been quick to leave once the doctors told us that Angela was stable, but not in the best of shape. Jack, sensing my wish to stay behind, had dismissed me from any sort of operations for both the rest of the day and tomorrow.

"Just make sure you call when she wakes up, I want to know she's alright." A nod and a salute had been my response, one that the older soldier had returned tiredly before following the rest of our team out of the door.

Her waking had not come as early as my hopes had initially allowed me to think. A couple hours was what I had told myself, but now the night was stretching on, and still Angela lay there, showing no sign of waking up any time soon. 

"Just, please, Angela, please be alright."


	2. Fallen Angel

When sleep managed to overtake me was an uncertainty, but it was the soft light of the early morning sun kissing my eyelids that drew me out of the darkness that had enveloped my consciousness at some point or another. For a moment, my surroundings failed to register, until my eyes fell on Angela. 

The blonde German was still asleep, and her bruises were all the more apparent in the early light of the morning. She looked so strangely frail in that bed, even for her. Her skin may have been bruised in a good number of places, but where it wasn't she was pale enough to nearly blend in to the bedsheets. 

My brows wrinkled in worry, wishing now that one of the doctors had informed me as to the extent of Angela's injuries, and the reason that they couldn't just use the same technology we had used to revive her. Unfortunately, that train of thought was disturbed by a light knock on the door.

Turning to face the source of the knocking didn't reveal the doctor that I had expected to be standing there. Instead, Genji Shimada stood in the door, leaning up against the frame with his arms crossed over his chest as he observed the scene in front of him.

"Hello, Genji." My voice held an edge to it that I did my best to contain, but slipped through nonetheless. Even if I did hold a certain degree of respect for the younger of the Shimada brothers when it came to combat, off the battlefield I couldn't help but feel contempt for him. 

"Good morning, Fareeha." His voice held a similar venom to my own, though his was better contained comparatively. "Jack said you had stayed with Angela, but I didn't expect you to stay." His attempt at a subtle dig failed, and my eyes only narrowed at the implication.

"I wouldn't leave with her in this condition." Was the counter that I came up with. In response, Shimada just shrugged and strolled over, though there was a visible tension as he strode. He went to the other side of the bed, and perched himself on the rail, facing away from Angela, toward the window. His proximity brought a scowl to my face.

Normally, I wouldn't have said anything about Genji being here, Angela was allowed to choose who she associated with, but with the way that he seemed to be doing his best to get closer to her than I was, it definitely set me off. "So, mind explaining why you're here? I thought Jack would have everyone out on operations today." Shimada shrugged without even turning to face me. 

"I have just as much a right to wait by her side as you do, Amari." His tone didn't hold the distinct anger that was swiftly rising in my every word, giving him an advantage in what was swiftly becoming an argument. "Maybe even more so, seeing as I owe her a debt." That was a hard argument to counter, but it didn't quell my anger any. 

For about an hour Shimada and I both sat in silence, him perched in the edge of the bed, me in the piece-of-junk chair that a nurse had brought the night previous. By the time a nurse came in, the sun was blazing in the sky, sending light streaming through the window, though Shimada blocked it from falling onto Angela's features. 

The nurse moved about the room, checked some different readings on the monitor next to Angela, and then left just as quickly as she had come, before I could stop to ask if the woman was doing alright. Even as I called for her to wait she just walked away as though she couldn't hear me. On the other side of the room, Shimada chuckled. "You would know if something was wrong." He informed me, and I bit my lip to keep from firing back some manner of insult at him.

"I suppose." I returned to my seat, and sat down, placing my knuckles under my jaw as I observed Angela. It was strange, I mused to myself, that she barely looked older than she had the day that I had met her. Still as beautiful as ever. The thought of that day brought a hint of a smile rising to my lips, of a childish Amari doing her best to gain the attention of the medical prodigy that worked with her mother.

"You can leave, if you'd like." Genii informed me. I bristled at the subtle hostility. 

"You could, as well. I've got everything under control here." Shimada again chuckled, his shoulder shaking as he did. He glanced back at me, shrugged, and then turned back to the same posture that he had been before comments had been made, facing away both from Angela and myself. My brows knit together in confusion at the fact that he hadn't so much as looked at Angela since he had arrived.

Hours passed by, the only sound in the room being Angela's heart monitor, and subtle hums that Shimada made every few minutes as though to keep himself awake. The longer he remained, the worse my mood got. There was a distinct knowledge to me that he was really just trying to get me to leave so that he could be alone with Angela. Well, the stubborn side of my brain reasoned, a chair that could barely be considered such hadn't made me leave, so Shimada being here wouldn't force me out.

"Are you just here out of guilt?" Was the question that Shimada finally posed to me as the sun was beginning to set. I jolted upward, my legs tensing as I stood. 

"What did you say?" I questioned, hands now on the rail across from Shimada, who hadn't even twitched to acknowledge my own movement. "I have no reason to be guilty." Shimada stood then, finally moving, and turned to face me, mimicking my own stance when he did so. 

"Do you not?" He didn't elaborate, just allows the words to hang in the air between us. My anger was quickly rising despite my best effort to contain it. My fingers gripped the railing tight enough that my knuckles grew pale, my eyes narrowed, and I could feel venom attempting to rush up my throat so that it could escape in words. 

I nearly allowed these venomous words to come out, before it was swiftly suppressed by a sweet, soft voice that was just barely audible. My eyes widened, and my heart jumped into my throat as I looked down, and met Angela's half-lidded eyes.


	3. Swimming in the Past

The fluorescent lights overhead buzzed, being the only prominent sound in the room. The glare they gave off was only intensified by the fact that the entirety of the room was a pale white, the walls, the floor, even the furniture was milky white. There were only two things that were not all white in my current view, and they were: 1, myself, and 2, the hair of the woman who sat across from me, and it was damn well close enough.

My legs swung beneath me on the edge of the table as I silently observed the woman who sat across from me. Her pale blue eyes were currently directed to a book that she had picked up about half-an-hour previous. One leg was crossed over the other, giving her a very professional appearance, despite being only a handful of years older than me. 

Doctor Ziegler’s office wasn’t usually open for anyone to just wander in, but with a good number of the team stationed at the base currently in a meeting, the younger Doctor had opened her door to me. She hadn’t really said a word when opening the door to her lab, she had just looked up from her book, offered a tiny smile, and opened the door so that I could come inside from the hallway my mother had left me in during the meeting. 

Usually, it would have been easy to just sit around and wait for my mother to leave her meeting, but twelve-year-old me had grown restless sitting in the lab. Even when I was left alone in the hall I had counted the tiles on the floor, occupied time thinking about other things. In the lab, the intense light and lack of color made my mind go blank. I pondered if that’s why the young doctor had a book with her, so that she wouldn’t go insane from sensory deprivation. 

“What are you reading?” I finally asked, leaning forward to put my hands between my legs, curling my fingers around the edge of the examination table as I leant forward, as though to look over the edge of the book that Doctor Ziegler still held in her hands. She glanced up at me, smiled, and then directed her gaze back down to her book. 

“It is a collection of stories that I have read since I was a child” She responded in her thick German accent, one that I had gotten somewhat used to understanding over the last month that we had spent living in the same base. Even over that period, it was rare to see the Doctor outside of her office, meaning that her accent was still somewhat difficult to me. My brows furrowed for a moment as my mind processed what she was saying, and when I believed I had a full understanding, I leant back.

“What kind of stories?” Again, Doctor Ziegler looked up at me, and lowered her book, slipping a finger between the pages to ensure that she kept her place marked as she turned her attention to me, instead of the fictional world she had been absorbed in. 

“Folk tales, mainly. Some fairy tales, things that my mother and father would tell me when I was just a Mädchen.” My brows raised at the unfamiliar word, and Doctor Ziegler chuckled as she realized that she had shifted into her foreign tongue. “My apologies, since I was just a girl.” My head cocked to the side then.

“You aren’t a woman yet, though, are you?” Doctor Ziegler smirked, put her book on the table that stood next to her before crossing her arms over her chest, the white lab coat that she wore furrowing where her arms crossed. She cocked a brow as her smirk remained, a silent invitation for me to clarify my assertion. “You’re only seventeen.” I reasoned, sitting back to sit straight up on the table.

“Being a woman does not mean I have to be an adult, Kleine.” Again, the last word of her statement was unfamiliar, but its context was familiar, even the tone that Doctor Ziegler used to say it. It was the same tone that my mother used when she was correcting me, though she wouldn’t call me a child, as I suspected Doctor Ziegler had just done. I huffed, but before a respond could leave my lips, Doctor Ziegler had walked over, and sat down next to me. “I have saved dozens of lives, seen battles that many people my age will never see.” She looked up into the lights above, the luminescence making her eyes shine from where I sat. “I am not eighteen, you are right, but I have done more than many women will ever do.” Doctor Ziegler looked down at me then, leant back so her weight was on her hands. “So has your mother and, if you follow her path, so will you.” 

“I’m already grown up.” I shot back, putting my arms over my chest defiantly. “I could join Overwatch if I wanted to, my mother just won’t let me.” Doctor Ziegler leant to the side, cocked a brow at me. 

“Oh, is that so?” She cast a bemused smile at me. “What exactly makes you think that you can join Overwatch when you’re so young?” She maintained her current posture as she waited for my response. 

“Because I’m strong enough to do it.” There a pause then, as all Doctor Ziegler could offer was that smile that she had cast my way. Annoyed at the fact that she was doubting me, I decided to ask her a question of my own.

“Why did you decide to join Overwatch, when you’re so young?” At that question, Doctor Ziegler’s smile fell into a frown, and her eyes instantly descended to the ground, casting out the light that had previously illuminated the blue orbs. Even as a pre-teen, I could sense that my question had struck some sort of memory that Doctor Ziegler hadn’t wanted to remember. 

“Do you really wish to know, Kleine?” She asked, turning her gaze toward me once more, mouth in a frown and eyes betraying a lack of light that could only accompany sadness. “Do you really want to know why it is that I joined Overwatch?” Though I was unsure, I nodded, now driven by curiosity rather than defiance. Doctor Ziegler sighed, and turned away from me, leaning forward so that her elbows were on her knees, her hands clutched between them, as though in prayer. She took a breath, and then began her explanation.

“There was…..a war, in my home country.” She explained, eyes not leaving the place on the floor that they were currently focused on as she spoke. “It was a terrible, terrible thing.” Doctor Ziegler looked up then, and I could see when the light hit her eyes that there were hints of tears brimming in the icy blue of her eyes. She took another breath, this one faltering when she exhaled, and then continued. 

“My parents, near my entire family, they were killed when the war reached my home.” She allowed those words to linger in the air for a moment, and then glanced over at me. “I watched, as my mother and father lay dying, having done their best to protect me from the bullets that had torn through our home.” She tapped her fingers against the table, searching for the next words to say. The tears that she had been attempting to blink away now spilled over, painting twin streams down her face. 

“I-“ She clenched her fists in the fabric of her lab coat. “I couldn’t do anything to save them. I didn’t have the medical knowledge at the time,” she leant forward, put her head in her hands. “I didn’t have the slightest clue of how to help, and there was nobody in our town that could help them. The doctors had either been murdered, or captured, and here I was, a little girl trying to hold in my father’s life, as my mother had already died.” Doctor Ziegler reached up, and pinched the bridge of her nose between two fingers, before moving her hand down to stem the flow of tears that ran down her face, and all I could do was sit there, dumbfounded at the explanation.

“I thought….for a time, that maybe, just maybe, some of my other family had survived the attack. My uncle, my cousins, perhaps, but they were brought out with the rest of the dead the next day.” Doctor Ziegler stumbled through these words, tears choking her words, muddying them even further in addition to her accent. “So, when I learned medicine, I decided that I wanted to use it to save as many people as I could.” She looked down at me then, eyes still brimming with tears.

“I thought Overwatch would give me the best opportunity to do that. I thought that, maybe if I joined with these other paragons of society, then maybe I could make a difference in the world.” Doctor Ziegler turned away again, and sighed, her hands now hanging loosely between her legs. “But it’s never enough. I can save as many people as possible, but still others will die, people that I could have helped, that I could have saved.” She sat in silence then for a few moments, before standing suddenly.

“Please, don’t join Overwatch.” She implored me, her voice low, barely more than a mutter. I went to say something in response, but before I could, the door opened, and my mother poked her head in the door. She called for me, saying that we needed to practice my martial arts before I went to bed, also commanding me to leave Doctor Ziegler alone. The young Doctor smiled, though it looked forced, and told my mother that I was fine, that I could come into her office anytime. With that, I left the office, and followed my mother to train.

Our next interaction came a few days later. It was after the entire group had just gone on a mission, and I was in Doctor Ziegler’s office while she looked over some wounds that my mother had received during the operation. She hummed to herself while she worked to feign happiness, but I could see that the light that had lingered there during the past month I had known her was gone, seemingly snatched away from the other day, and not yet returned. 

“Alright.” Doctor Ziegler declared, pushing her chair back from where my mother lay on an examination table. “You should be good to go, Ana. Just take it easy for a day or two, and let me know if anything doesn’t feel right.” My mother nodded, thanked Doctor Ziegler, and stood up to go. I, however, remained on the side of the examination table, legs crossed. My mother called for me to follow, but I insisted that I wished to stay with Doctor Ziegler, just for a little while. My mother protested, saying that I didn’t need to be bothering the Doctor after a long day of work, but the young Swiss woman only smiled that kind smile of hers, and assured my mother that I was fine if I stayed for just awhile longer. 

My mother looked from Doctor Ziegler, to me, and sighed, before reminding me that I needed to be in her room within the hour, it was getting late. I nodded, promised to return to our room as soon as I could. Seemingly satisfied, my mother closed the door that we had come through only a handful of minutes ago. With her gone, Doctor Ziegler turned to me, still maintaining the fake smile she had offered to my mother.

“So, Kleine,” she said, using the term that she had seemingly adopted for me over the past handful of days. “Why is it that you wished to stay behind? My lab isn’t that intriguing to a soldier, is it?” I shook my head.

“No, not really, I wanted to talk to you though, about what you said the other day.” Doctor Ziegler raised a brow, asking for clarification. “About me not joining Overwatch.”

“Ah.” Doctor Ziegler leant back in her chair, brought her hands together on her lap. “I’m guessing that you’re going to tell me that I’m an idiot? That you’re going to try and join anyway?” I bit my lip, and again shook my head. 

“No, I just wanted to ask why you think I shouldn’t.” That question hung in the air between us, a tangible tension settling over the room before Doctor Ziegler sighed, and cocked her head to the side.

“Let me ask, why do you want to join Overwatch? I know you said that you’re strong enough, but what is your goal?” My goal? Well, that was an obvious question for me to answer, my goal had been clear in my mind ever since I had first known about my mother’s work with Overwatch.

“I want to protect people, save as many of them as I can.” Doctor Ziegler nodded, and gave me a sad smile. 

“Well, if saving people is your goal, then I suggest that you not join Overwatch.”

“Why?”

“Because we hurt as many people as we save.” Doctor Ziegler responded sternly, but kept a soft edge to her voice. “It’s not intentional, of course, but wherever we go, people who aren’t our enemies get hurt. Yes, we save people, but there are so many better ways that you could save them. So please, Kleine, do something else. Do something where you can save people without hurting others, please.” My eyes widened at the explanation.

“Well, why don’t you leave?” I asked, cocking my head to the side. Doctor Ziegler’s sad smile only remained on her face as she stood, and again joined me on the examination table, just as she had during our last conversation.

“Because, Overwatch needs me. Everyone here is my family, and I swore to protect my family.” She put a hand on my shoulder, and her smile gained some scrap of the happiness that she had displayed to me during the rest of my stay. “But if you could grow up, and do all you could to save people, then I assure you that both your mother and the rest of Overwatch would be so proud of you. You don’t have to fight our wars.” 

“Would you be proud of me?” The question seemed to catch the Swiss teen off guard, as she leant back, but then her smile widened.

“Kleine, I would be very, very proud of you, if you were to do that.” I turned away from her gaze, looked down at the floor, twirling my thumbs around each other as I thought on what she had just told me. 

“Hey, Doctor Ziegler?” I asked, turning to face her after a few moments.

“You don’t have to call me Doctor, you can call me Angela.” 

“Will you call me Fareeha, then?” Doctor Ziegler, rather, Angela, nodded. “Well, I was wondering, you talked about losing people that you’ve loved….did you ever have a boyfriend?” I cocked my head to the side as I asked, and Angela chuckled at the question. 

“That’s a strange question, why do you ask?” I shrugged, informed her that it was just out of curiosity, though the pounding of my heart said otherwise. 

“Well, no, I haven’t. I’ve spent too much time in labs, out of social interaction.” She smiled to herself. “Besides, I’m not much into boys.” She said, before standing. “Now, shouldn’t you be heading back to your mother’s room? I believe it’s getting late.” I shrugged, and slid off the table. With the both of us standing, it was obvious how much shorter I was than the young Doctor, coming barely up to her shoulder.

“Have you ever wanted a girlfriend?” I asked, and Angela chuckled. 

“I don’t see why you should be asking that, Kleine.” She said, before crouching so she was eye level with me. “You’re a bit young to be asking these kinds of things, aren’t you?” I shook my head in response. 

“I’ve had a girlfriend.” I responded, and Angela nodded, amused at the declaration. 

“Is that so? Well, you seem to be much more grown-up than I thought, Fareeha, perhaps I should stop calling you little one.” 

“Grown-up enough that I could be your girlfriend?” I asked, and Angela cocked a brow before standing at full height, crossing her arms over her chest. 

“Oh, I don’t know about that. Give yourself a few years, maybe, get big and strong, save a few thousand people, then we’ll talk.” Angela smiled. “Now, I think you shoulder be heading to your mother’s room. Goodnight, Fareeha.” I spoke a quiet goodnight, and then left the lab, heading back toward my mother’s room, a clear goal now set in mind.

Now, twenty years later, I sat in that same lab, head in my hands as the visions of these memories played out before my eyes. Looking back on it, I had realized around my fifteenth birthday that Angela had just been humoring me, that she really didn’t have any intention of being with me, but that hadn’t stopped me from trying to win her attention. Save a few thousand people, she had said. Well, I was certainly on track with that one. Grow up, I think I had accomplished that task as much as I possibly could. 

But now, it appears Angela had changed her mind about men, seeing how she had spent the last couple of holidays with Shimada. Anger burned in my stomach at that thought, that he had just swept in and stolen her heart, damn thief. I was the one who was supposed to have swept Angela off her feet, that had been my goal ever since I was twelve, and it had been stolen away from me before I could accomplish it. 

My eyes wandered to where Angela lay, sleeping on one of her own examination tables. She had insisted on going to her own room once she had been returned from the hospital, but the entire team had insisted that she needed to stay here, at least for a couple of days. She wouldn’t be allowed on operations for at least a week, but we figured once she was up and moving she could at least go to her own room for the night. 

I returned my hands to my face, and sighed. Why had a young me made such a stupid decision, to fall in love with an angel?


	4. Baby Steps

"Fareeha, please, I can get up just fine." I bit my lip at Angela's insistence as she pushed herself to a sitting position on the examination table where she had spent the night. At her movement I had rushed over to assist, an action which the German had brushed off quickly. I bit my lip, but stepped back, staying tensed should Angela need my assistance.

"Just....be careful, Jack didn't even want you up for the next couple of days." Angela glanced up at me as she stood, the full gravity of how out of dress she looked in the oversized t-shirt she was currently wearing. 

"Who's the doctor here?" 

"You are, but, still." That hung in the air as Angela leant on the edge of the table, looking at me over her shoulder, expecting me to continue the statement. "I just don't want you hurting yourself somehow." Angela rolled her eyes, but her usual smile finally rose on her features, making its first appearance in the past handful of days, and sending my heart into a fury. 

"I think that I know my limits, Süßling." My brow shot up at the unfamiliar German term, one that I had never actually heard Angela use. My first reaction was to ask her what exactly it meant, before realizing that it sounded sarcastic, meaning I would rather not know. For all I knew, she could have just insulted me.

"Well, yeah, but we all push ourselves a little too much."Angela chuckled at the statement. Shaking her head as she pushed off of the table, wincing and putting a hand on her side, but standing nonetheless.

"You're one to talk." My cheeks burned red at the accusatory statement. 

"I was needed for that operation, and you know it." Angela moved her hand to the table, steadying herself, and smiled in my direction as she continued to stand, bruised body looking too frail to be standing. I was tempted to force her back into the bed, but didn't want to injure her further.

"And tell me, why aren't you in an operation right now?" That question brought my lips to a frown, and Angela chuckled, reading my expression like she knew all of them by heart. "Jack realizes you aren't quite the same as you were when you joined, right?" 

"Doesn't seem like it." I muttered, crossing my arms over my chest before I realized what it was that she was doing. "Hey, stop trying to direct all of the attention back to me, you're the one whose hurt, and disobeying orders." I jabbed a finger in Angela's direction, and she just held her hands up in innocence.

"I don't know what you're talking about, I didn't receive any orders." Gods, she could be so stubborn sometimes. As though spurred by my thoughts, Angela once again withdrew her hand from the bed, and took a step forward.

"See? I'm fi-" before the Swiss woman could finish her sentence, she fell forward. Thankfully I was close enough to move forward and catch her mid fall, holding her against me in an effort to steady her as her legs shook underneath her. "Schieße." She muttered under her breath.

"What did I tell you? You need to get back in bed." Angela looked up at me, and frowned. "Don't give me that look." I chided "I'm just looking out for your best interest. You can barely walk." Angela looked down at her still shaking legs, and sighed, as though in defeat. She closed her eyes, and bowed her head.

"Just, please, let me try." She murmured, and suddenly I was met with a vision of a contrasting situation, though it was so, so similar. My fingers curled around Angela's twig-like arms, and then I sighed, and loosened my grip. 

"Okay." I crept back, hands still on Angela's arms so that I could help her stay upright. She used one of my arms to steady myself and, once I had stepped away, she stood on her own. I didn't go far though, staying just barely a couple of feet away, in case she pitched forward once more. 

Once Angela had gained her balance, she took a shaky step forward, her entire body shaking before she took another, barely maintaining her footing as she did so. She looked so much unlike the graceful woman that I knew, more like a fawn taking its first clumsy steps in the world. One more step, and Angela winced. Before she could even pitch forward, I was on her, putting my hands on her waist to steady her, her hands falling on my shoulders as she winced again. 

"Schieße" she cursed once more, her breathing having quickened considerably from the calm, slow rhythm that it usually maintained. 

"I've got you." I assured her, and Angela's eyes opened slowly from their wincing expression, before meeting mine. I found myself ensnared by the gaze of her icy blue eyes, pain reflected where her usual kind light would usually be found. "Let me carry you." I whispered, not wanting Angela to push herself any further. She looked like she wanted to protest, but realized just how bad she was feeling.

"Okay." With that, I bent down and picked Angela up as gently as I could, the light frame of the Doctor nearly flying off of the ground when I picked her up. She winced as her body was moved, and I whispered an apology. Once she had adjusted herself in my arms, Angela nodded to tell me that she was ready for me to move. 

I stepped carefully over to the examination table where Angela had been laying only a handful of minutes ago, and set her down on the bed. "Can you promise me that you won't try to get up for the next couple of days?" Angela cocked a brow as she looked over at me, giving me an answer without even speaking. I sighed. "At least promise that you won't push yourself, let me be here when you're trying to walk, okay?"

"You seem very interested in helping me, Süßling." There was that word again, one of the few that I had never heard Angela use before. It sounded less mocking this time, more sincere, only furthering intensifying my curiosity as to what the word could possibly mean.

"Doctor Ziegler, I thought we agreed not to call each other by anything but our names." Angela's brows rose at the sudden use of the term that I hadn't spoken in the last twenty years. After a moment, a smirk rose to her features though, one that was all too familiar to the memories swiftly being conjured up. 

"That we did, though I didn't think you would complain." Now it was my turn to be confused, why wouldn't I complain about her calling me anything but my name? That had been our deal. 

"So, what does that word mean?" Angela's smirk rose into a smile then, before she responded.

"I thought you would have learned all of my German by now, at least you would've before our little split." Angela sighed, and ran her fingers through the mess of disheveled platinum hair on her head. "It means sweet." I chuckled at the explanation.

"I think we both know I'm anything but sweet, Angela." I paused "Besides, I think I'm justified in being worried about your recovery, you got hurt because you were trying to help me." Angela shrugged from where she lay, even that slight movement causing her to wince. 

"It's my job to help those who need it, you don't have to feel guilty." There was that damn word again, the same one that Shimada had shot at me in spite when we had been in the hospital room, before we had gone outside. I wasn't guilty, I insisted to myself, I just cared about Angela. 

"I'm not guilty, but you're my friend. I don't want to see you hurt." This statement caused Angela to chuckle, and my brows to arch. "What's so funny?" Angela turned her gaze back to me from where she had momentarily redirected it.

"Now you know how I feel." She explained. "How it feels to see all of you when you come back from operation, banged up and bruised, bullet holes, burns, it hurts." My brows furrowed at the explanation; Angela had never displayed any sort of concern when we came back from missions. She just did the same thing every time, treated our wounds, and attempted to lift our spirits. It occurred to me then that maybe that smile wasn't always as genuine as it seemed.

"You do well at hiding it." Angela sighed, and again sat up so that we were eye-to-eye. She locked her eyes on mine, and then they darted down to the bed. 

"It's something you learn to do, when you've spent the past twenty years playing guardian angel." She moved her hands to the oversized shirt that Jack had provided, and curled her fingers in the white fabric, the bruised skin contrasting heavily with the pale pigment. 

"But I've started to realize that my work doesn't do anything to help, if anything it hurts. You all go out on missions, feeling like you're invincible. Then, when you get yourselves hurt you just come to me, and I fix everything." Angela looked down. "I'm happy to see you all feel better, but you have no idea how many times I've spent sleepless nights wondering if someone was going to live through the night." A certain incident from my early days in Overwatch came to mind. 

"Well, I felt some of your pain over the past few days." I responded, moving to perch on the edge of the bed, legs hanging off in the same exact manner that they did when I was a child, the only difference being that my feet could almost touch the ground now when I sat down. "I didn't want to tell you when you first woke up, but I stayed up basically the whole day when you got hurt....I was afraid, really afraid." Angela cocked a brow, a gesture that I could only see in my peripheral vision.

"Well, I can remember a handful of nights when I've done the same for you." Angela admitted, before looking off in some vague direction, away from me at the very least. An awkward silence settled over us then. It felt as though both of us were searching for something to say, but couldn't quite figure out what would be best. I bit my lip, mind racing through the various scenarios that could potentially arise from what could be said.

In the end, I decided that it would just be best to walk away now. Enough had been said, and I didn't want to push the discussion further, not with the condition that Angela was currently in, not with the fact that she seemed to be interested in someone else.

"I'm going to head back to my room.....will you call for me if you need anything?" I turned my gaze to Angela, who nodded at the question, but didn't verbally respond. I mentally cursed myself, wondering if I had said too much already, or if Angela simply wasn't interested in talking to me. "Okay."

I stood, and silently left the room, glancing over my shoulder one last time before shutting the door behind me, blocking Angela from my sight. I sighed, and reached up to run my fingers through my hair in a manner similar to what Angela had done minutes ago during our conversation.

The walk back to my room seemed much longer than usual, even if it was just down a few halls in the base. Each step that carried me away from Angela only caused both my heart and my brain to yell at me, asking why I hadn't taken my chance to tell her how I felt when it had been more-or-less thrust into my face. 

Not the time, I reasoned as I climbed into bed, stripping off the t-shirt that I had donned before taking up my vigil in the lab. Not yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I decided to post twice today because I'm really loving the process of writing this fic. I would like to note that the previous chapter was inspired by a comic, the link to which I will post in the notes of the next chapter so that the artist can receive credit for his/her work. Uh, besides that there's not much else to say. I hope you all enjoy the double post today, I'll do my best to post tomorrow as well.


	5. Down

The helicopter transporting the strike team rocked as it transported us to the operation zone, sending all of us jostling against each other as Athena did her best to avoid the fire that by which we had more or less been confined to our seats. “Be advised, we will be approaching the drop zone in approximately fifteen seconds.” The A.I’s voice came over the intercom that was set into the door behind the cockpit. “Scans show that resistance is already amassing toward where we will be landing. I would suggest that Reinhardt ready his shield.” Behind me, the bulky German man harrumphed, and stood, having to duck in order to not hit his head on the ceiling of the helicopter. His hammer remained on the empty seat next to him, the one with Angela’s callsign nailed into the metal above it. 

“Do not worry my friends,” Reinhardt said as the helicopter began its descent. “I will be your shield.” We all got up, and moved behind the biotic barrier that Reinhardt put up, Jack picking up the hammer and handing it to our pseudo-knight. He held the hammer in one hand as though it was nothing, despite Jack struggling to lift it the foot or so off of the seat. 

“Pharah.” Jack called to get my attention, and I turned my gaze toward him, though still held my rocket launcher leveled so that I could shoot through Reinhardt’s shield, if need be. “Don’t take off until we make sure that the area is decently clear, I don’t want you getting hurt.” Of course he didn’t want me getting hurt now, without Mercy we didn’t have much in the way of support. Lucio and Zenyatta were off with other strike teams, leaving just myself, Reinhardt, Jack, Genji, and Jamison for this mission. Why someone had decided to bring along the explosive-loving criminal, I couldn’t even begin to know. 

“Got it.” I responded, bringing my visor down to cover my eyes. In the corner of my display all of my vital readouts were shown in digital detail, along with a reading of how many rockets were currently left in my launcher. By the count of my display, there were the usual six, and I had loaded into the system that I had five resupply chips in the pocket on my leg, ready to be loaded in so that the rockets could be reproduced. 

With the issue of me taking off settled, we all leveled our weapons at the door as the helicopter hit the ground. The door cracked open and almost instantly the sound of bullets pinging off of the inside of the helicopter and ricocheting filled the claustrophobic space that we stood in. Thankfully, Reinhardt’s shield filled the entirety of said space, ensuring that even the bullets that ricocheted couldn’t make their way to us. Taking the first move, Jamison lobbed a grenade through the tiny gap in the helicopter door, which caused a clamor outside as those currently firing on us attempted to move away from the explosive. Then, once the door had opened completely, the rest of us joined in on the attempt to scatter those who were already firing on us. 

Jack did the majority of the clearing out, with him having the most ammunition out of all of us. Jamison and I aimed for larger group of hostile forces, while Reinhardt just continued to hold his shield up in order to keep us protected from frontal attacks, the helicopter protecting us from behind as we moved out of the confined space. Genji was the first to break from the line behind the shield, rushing forward with lightning-like speed, sword drawn as he went. He slashed at a group of enemies before darting to another, deflecting the hail of bullets sent his way as he went. 

“Damn reckless kid.” Jack muttered under his breath as he continued to fire on the groups away from where Genji was moving, Jamison and I similarly redirected our fire, but it soon grew hard to redirect fire, as Genji kept moving between groups like some sort of predatory animal, striking at weak links in each pack. Usually, it would have been appreciated, since he might’ve been able to take a hit from friendly fire with Angela around. Now, we had to be extra careful, and the Japanese man was impeding our progress of clearing the landing zone more than he was helping. Jack seemed to realize this after a few minutes, and ordered Shimada back behind the shield. 

“I can take care of this.” The younger of the two brothers responded over the commlink, and Jack growled out his order again. Reinhardt chipped in with Jack, agreeing that it would probably be best for the young man to retreat, seeing as how this was taking much longer than it should have with the three of us having to aim around him. Begrudgingly, Genji returned to the space behind the shield as we swept up what remained of the hostile forces. Once the landing pad was, more or less, clear, Jack ordered me up into the air to see what we were dealing with on the way into the building containing the H.V.I. I rose up into the air, carried aloft by my jet thrusters, and observed the field ahead of us. Hostiles were bunched together in tiny clusters behind random bits of cover. I dispatched a few of them with shots from my launcher, before the rest of them began to concentrate fire in my direction.

I descended back down into the shield, rocket launcher hot in my hands where I held it close to the barrel. “There’s at least four or five more groups of hostiles, each of them are probably four or five each, mostly small arms.” Jack nodded, and instructed Genji and Jamison to take ones toward the front, while he and I would focus our fire on the ones behind the front line. Genji huffed an agreement, and Jamison only grinned, seemingly pleased to be able to blow something up, it didn’t seem to matter what it was.  
“Pharah, be careful up there, if they start concentrating fire again, then get back down here so I can draw them, or find some cover up there.” My eyes scanned the vicinity, there weren’t any rooftops to perch on, but there were a few places where the building we were heading toward had overhangs, places where I might be able to flank, providing that I moved fast enough to avoid enemy fire. I nodded my agreement to Jack’s warning, and then blasted off toward the side of the bridge, moving faster than the enemies could move their rifles. By the time they did manage to attempt tracking me they were already under fire by the rest of my team as Reinhardt pushed forward on the bridge to allow them to get within closer range, occasionally throwing out bolts of energy from his hammer when the fire thinned enough. With the attention of the hostiles now drawn away from me, I set down on an overhand directly behind them, took a couple of shots into their backline, and then rose again to circle around the building, effectively throwing them into a frenzy.  
One rotation around the building, with the wind whipping in my ears through my helmet, and Reinhardt had already assisted our team in pushing about three quarters of the way to the end of the bridge. What remained of the hostiles was just a small clustered group, one that seemed to have finally shattered Reinhardt’s shield, as the large German was crouched behind a piece of portable cover that the hostiles had formerly been behind, the rest of the team in cover as well. “Pharah, could you take care of these guys?” Jack’s voice came over the commlink.

“Yes, sir.” I responded, flying so that I was directly over the hostiles forces pinning down my team. I momentarily let my launcher drop, and searched for the button on the side of my arm that would activate my rocket barrage. Finding it, I ensured that my position was just right, before pressing the button. The hatches on my shoulders opened, and there was the whistle of the hail of rockets that were concealed there as they were released, flying wildly, but with enough precision so as to not hit my teammates. 

Then, there was a blinding pain that shot up my back, and I found myself careening toward the building, rockets still whistling out of their places as my body was sent through a window with a loud crash, and an impact that caused my ears to ring. I hit the ground inside of the building and lay there for a moment, breath shallow as my ears continued to ring, and my eyes struggled to focus. Through the buzzing in my ears, I could hear the voices of Jack and Reinhardt calling out for me to respond, but my tongue felt as though it was glued to the roof of my mouth. That, and I was still struggling to breath. Once I managed to get the breathing down, I reached down, and attempted to push myself up onto my knees, but winced and fell forward as a bolt of pain rushed up my back again. I cursed, and grit my teeth, closing my eyes and taking quick breaths before attempting to repeat the action, this time pushing through the pain that rushed up my back, and radiated throughout the rest of my body.

“I’m up, sir.” I said, unable to fully comprehend what Reinhardt and Jack were saying as my mind was put in a haze from the adrenaline currently rushing through my body, combined with the probable concussion that I had sustained despite my helmet, which seemed to have come off in the impact. “Barely.” There was some sort of response, but again, I couldn’t quite understand it. Jack just sounded like a less-buzzy noise in my ears, but still distorted to the point where I couldn’t hear. 

I stood up against a table, and reached around to my back in an attempt to discern what it was that was causing me so much pain currently. My fingers brushed over the area where the pain was central, and found that there was a sizable hole in my armor. Looking down, there was also a puddle of blood forming on the ground beneath me, definitely not a good sign. With lightheadedness suddenly taking a hold of me, I leant back heavily on the desk, both arms now resting there as my legs did their best to hold me up. “I can’t walk.” I said to nobody in particular, but was happy to know that the commlink had stayed in my ear even through the impact. “My suit’s damaged, and I’ve got a pretty sizable hole in my back.” I explained, doing my best to remain calm despite the panic and shock that was swiftly threatening to overwhelm my senses. Thankfully, my head had begun to clear enough that I could hear Jack’s response over the comms.

“Just stay right there, we’ll be up to get you in just a few minutes, we’re on the floor right below you, but we’ve ran into some resistance.” Well, that certainly wouldn’t do, I reasoned. My friends needed my help, so I was going to help them. I swept my eyes over the floor, searching for my rocket launcher among the debris that my crash had created in the seeming office that this room had once been. Finally, my eyes came to rest on it, lying under an overturned chair that had been shattered when I had seemingly crashed directly into it. I took a step, but the weight of my suit was proving too much for my body to move. Undeterred, I disengaged the lock on my suit, and stepped out, now able to move slowly, but it was better than not moving at all. I limped over to my rocket launcher, and picked it up, checking the chamber manually to see that I had seemingly reloaded just before moving to make the final assault. At least there was that, I mused to myself, before turning to the door, holding the rocket launcher in one hand as the other held onto the desk, another chair, the wall, in an attempt to steady myself as I moved. 

Beneath me, I could hear the sounds of gunfire, but couldn’t quite tell which side was my friends, and which one was the group of terrorists who had taken our H.V.I hostage. A sudden boom directly beneath my feet clarified the situation instantly, quickly followed by another that only confirmed my clarification. If Jamison was shooting to this side, then they were right beneath me. Aware of this now, I moved further down the hall, away from where the booms were coming from, and then shot the ground directly where I had been standing when I’d heard the explosion, and had felt it rock the floor beneath me. What remained of the floor was now a smoking hole, one that I aimed through from my current position. Catching sight of a hostile, I pulled the trigger two times in quick succession, sending a pair of rockets flying through the hole, and into their ranks. The recoil of two rockets also knocked me back in my unstable state, taking my legs out from under me and flooring me, stopping me from taking another shot at the enemies who now seemed to be in a panic, firing through the hole in my direction. Instinctively, I curled up into a ball to make myself as small of a target as possible, but the fire stopped as soon as it started.  
“Pharah? Pharah, come in, are you alright?” Jack’s voice rang over the line, and I responded that I was alive, if that counted for anything. He sighed, muttered a curse, and then informed me that they would be right up. He reached me first, and it took me a moment to realize that he was actually the only one that had come up. “Everyone else is getting the H.V.I, come on.” He extended a hand to me, before seeing the pool of blood that was swiftly expanding beneath me. He cursed, and told me to hold still as he removed his jacket, sitting me up and pressing the jacket into the wound. 

“I’ll be fine.” I assured him, but Jack was already calling for Athena to come and pick me up from the hole that I had made in the window. “I said I’m fine.” I urged, standing up suddenly before the world tipped around me, and I hit the floor again, gritting my teeth as the pain that had dulled somewhat now fired up in full force once more. Darkness crept around my vision, and I swiftly slipped under. There were some brief moments in the darkness when I could hear people talking, when I could feel myself being moved, but my eyes didn’t open until a bright light was shot down directly on them.

I groaned, and shielded my eyes, muttering that the light wasn’t necessary. Then, I heard Angela’s voice muttering in a worried tone. She moved along the table I had seemingly been placed on, supporting herself as I saw that Jack stood directly behind her, ready to help her out if she asked him to. “I’m fine.” I went to insist despite the fact that my head was still swimming, but Angela cut me off. 

“You have a hole through your body.” She shot, concern with an underlying edge of anger lacing her voice. “You are not fine.” I went to respond again, to say that I was, indeed, fine, but Angela put a bruised hand over my mouth, and glared down at me. Despite the fact that she still looked weak and was unable to stand on the power of her own two legs, she definitely looked intimidating from my perspective. “Be quiet.” She ordered. The look in her eyes, more than the words, were what spurned me to follow the Doctor’s orders. Then, just as quickly, I was instinctively told to disobey when a piercing pain shot through the entirety of my body. Nearly every muscle in my body tensed, and my breath left me to the point where I couldn’t inhale, my eyes were wide open, staring at the light above me as Angela’s machine did its work on the hole in my body, mending it to the best of its ability. If I’d the sense, I might have lashed out in an attempt to disrupt the stream, as my primal instincts were ordering, but the pain was so intense that I was unable to even move, my body locked into this contorted position under the beam that Angela had directed in my body. 

I couldn’t even scream, all that left my throat when I attempted to let out a breath was a whine, and then the beam was shut off. I hit the table with a loud thud, and lay there on the metal, panting heavily as my body attempted to fully process what had just happened. My eyes unfocused from the pain, and then focused once more on Angela’s face looming above me, before it registered that she had her hands on my shoulders, a good amount of her weight put on her hands even as I saw Jack’s hands lingering on the older woman’s waist.

“You’ll be okay.” Angela informed me as I finally drew in a breath, the tiniest hint of a smile rising to her features along with the relief that I had begun to breathe properly. “You’ll take a few days to fully recuperate, seeing how much blood you lost, but you’ll be fine.” I swallowed, attempting to clear my throat as well as my mind before I responded, but even in my pain-wracked state I couldn’t help but find myself captivated by Angela’s smile as she looked down on me. 

For a moment, I thought that maybe that smile meant there was something. Something between us that I had been hoping for ever since the recall. Maybe, just maybe, I had finally managed to draw the attention of our residential doctor, the angel who had captivated me since youth.


	6. Liebe

"Where's Angela?" Jack looked up from the display on his wrist, and cocked a brow at the sudden question, setting his hand aside as his fingers curled around the handle of his mug. 

"What do you mean?" I frowned at his feigned ignorance, walked over to the table that he currently sat at, and put my hands on the polished surface, leaning over it so that I was eye -to-eye with him. His steel gaze met my own, and for a moment I thought that we might get into a fight. "I don't know where Angela is." Jack offered, suddenly backpedaling, but still offering no more information than he had initially.

"Bullshit." I shot in response, the word sounding foreign as it rolled off of my tongue, partially due to its lack of use from me. "You always know where all of us are." I now sat down in the chair directly across from him. "So, please, tell me where she went. She's too weak to be up and about right now." Jack shot a glance down to my still-bandaged chest, the white gauze showing under my shirt where some of the repair had come undone the night previous.

"Last I checked, Mercy told you to stay in bed too." Jack smarmed in return, leaning forward on his arms, fingers still linked through the handle of his mug, which had gone untouched since I'd entered the room. I scowled in response as he used Angela's words against me, of course he would take her side on this. 

"I just want to make sure she's safe, is she at least with someone, can you tell me that?" Jack smirked, and leant back in his chair, letting go of his handle as he put his hands behind his head. He tapped his fingers on the opposite hand as he maintained this posture.

"I could," he began, then cocked his head to the side, "but I can guarantee that you won't like what I have to say." My own brows furrowed at the explanation. What in the world could I not like about him telling me where Angela was? I thought on that for a moment, before the explanation dawned on me.

"You can't be serious." I leant back in the chair that I had sat down in, putting my hands behind my head as I stared straight ahead at Jack. "Where?" Again, Jack just shook his head.

"Sorry Fareeha, but I can't tell you. I have to respect our teammates privacy." He pulled out the small device that i knew he used to keep track of all of us, just in case, he said, and put it on the table just in front of him. "I only use this when it comes to missions, or when someone is in danger." He let those words hang in the air for a moment, before he suddenly pushed his chair away from the table, and stood. 

"Now, if you'll excuse me, Reinhardt wanted me to help him test out some modifications he made to his shield. See you later." He shot a smile my way, and then walked away from the table, leaving the circular device in the space between us. I watched as he left the room, and shook my head. The old man certainly knew how to play passive. I reached forward and grabbed the device off of the table, before switching it on.

A display was activated, a map that expanded out of the device, displaying where every active Overwatch operative was in the world. I spun the projected globe so that it was in the area of our base, and scanned the area for either Angela or Genji's callsign, and location. 

Damn Shimada, I thought to myself as I scanned the globe, he couldn't just let her heal up, could he? After a moment, I found Angela's callsign on the map, and stood, taking note of where they were, the town just north of the base. I made my way out of the room, grabbed my leather coat as I went, and pulled it over my shoulders. 

The garage attached to the base was missing a car, one that I hadn't taken note of when checking it early, it was one of our older, civilian models, something we usually used for undercover operations rather than excursions. The car I chose, however, was an azure blue sports car, the make of which I didn't know nor care about. The only thing I cared about at the moment is that it would get me to Angela faster than the other cars currently left in the garage.

I turned the key in the ignition, and the engine roared to life. Athena, hearing the sound of the car starting up, opened the door to the road for me. "Have a safe drive, Ms. Amari." Athena came over the system hard wired into the car, and I thanked her, before asking if she could route Angela's current position into the GPS. "That would be highly unethical, to track Doctor Ziegler like that." There was a brief moment of hesitation. "But I would do so if there was good reason."

"There is." I said as I put the car in drive. "I'm going to do something that I should have done a long time ago." I shot out of the garage, already pushing sixty as I sped down the highway that had been built exclusively for Overwatch use.

"What is that?" 

"I'm going to tell an angel that I love her." There was a flash on the display that was set into the dashboard, and I looked down to see that a location had been programmed into the GPS. "Thanks Athena."  
****  
The town was crowded, much more so than I had initially expected. It looked like there was some sort of festival going on, and the crowds of people filling the streets forced me to part on a side street, still a good ways away from where Athena had told me Angela was. I scowled at the fact that I hadn't brought my commlink, nor had I thought to bring Jack's tracker. Essentially, I was going to have to find Angela by myself now. I cursed, and pushed the door open, before stepping out. 

"Be careful, Pharah." Athena advised over the intercom, and I sighed before assuring her that I would do my best. I shut the door, and stood straight up, looking around in order to get my bearings. It looked like the majority of the people were heading toward what sounded like a concert in full swing. I sighed, and merged into the crowd, moving with them toward the flashing lights and blasting bass that accompanied the music. 

"Woah." I heard someone say, and glanced to the side to see that a young boy, probably about eight or nine years old, was looking up at me in wonder as he walked hand in hand with who I presumed to be his mother. "Mommy, mommy." The little boy called, pointing to me. "It's Pharah." His mother looked, then followed his finger to where I stood. At this point, he had stopped walking, oddly prompting me to do the same. Unfortunately, his calling out my name had also drawn the attention of other people that were close.

There were mutters of awe, some doubtful, but the little kid just let go of his mom's hand and walked up to me, seemingly ignoring everyone else as he came to stand directly in front of me."You're so cool, you're my hero." The kid grinned, and I couldn't help but return a smile in kind. 

"Thank you." I said, and, like a celebrity would, I thought about giving the kid something. I didn't have anything on hand, but, with a smile, I slipped the jacket that I had been wearing off. "You're the reason that I do what I do." I squatted down, and held the jacket out to the kid, whose eyes lit up as he reached out. I put it in his hands, and I thought his grin was going to widen enough that it would split his face. 

"Thank you!" He exclaimed as he pulled the jacket on, marveling at the patch bearing my name that rested on his chest now. He stepped forward, and now that I was eye level, he threw his arms around me. I was stunned by the initial contact, but then returned his embrace before standing up. People were still watching the display, but a good number of them had begun to head back toward the concert. 

"Thank you for that." The boy's mother said once he had stepped to her side. "Your his hero, really." I smiled to myself, and shrugged. 

"I should be thanking him. Kids like him are the next heroes, the people that'll let me retire." I held my hand out to the kid, who shook it gratefully before walking off with his mother, still marveling at the various details of the jacket that had made it mine. 

I merged back into the crowd then, and soon I found myself in the midst of the lights and noise of the concert. The vocalists voice drifted out over the crowd, the lights blinded me when I looked to the stage for too long, these combined things made it hard for me to see or hear Angela among the crowd. I moved through the crowd, muttering apologies to those that I passed, as I continued to scan all the faces, hoping to find Angela's. 

When I did find her, I felt my courage shrink in my chest. She was sitting on Genji's shoulders, waving on Genji's shoulders in time with the music, a smile plastered on her features the likes of which I had never been able to bring her. And he was the one who had caused it. I was the one wanting to confine her, and he was the one who wanted to set her free. My hands curled into fists at my sides, and I bit my lip, now seeing two distinct paths in front of me, even if they were invisible to anyone else. Walk in front of them, talk to Angela with Shimada standing right there, or walk by, and leave my feelings behind, let her have happiness with Shimada.

Time seemed to move in slow motion as I considered my options, Angela continued to sway on Genji's shoulders, the people all moved around me, their collective jumping rocking me from side to side as they brushed against me. Just as I was about to make my decision, it was basically made for me. Someone brushed against Genji's a bit too hard, and he lost his balance with Angela's extra weight also swaying. His grip loosened, and Angela started to fall, moving slower than anything else in my eyes. 

Without thinking, I rushed forward, taking the few steps that separated us within a second, and caught Angela before she hit the ground, though I went to the floor myself from the force, wincing in pain when I hit the pavement. I cursed, and Angela began to furiously apologize, before she saw on whom she had just fallen. "Fareeha? What're you doing here?" Now, the door was wide open, with Angela literally kneeling over me, her eyes locked directly on mine. 

"I wanted to tell you something." I responded, pushing myself into a sitting position so that Angela and I were eye to eye. She cocked her head to the side, silently questioning why I had to come here to do it. "I've wanted to tell you for awhile." I clarified. Twenty years definitely qualified as awhile, in my book. Angela's brows furrowed, but then her eyes lit up with sudden understanding.

"Fareeha-" before she could say anything more, say anything that would stop me from at least getting this out, I pressed forward, put my hands on hers where they rested on the ground, having slipped off of my chest. My heart beat loudly in my chest, the sound consuming everything, drowning out the music, the only thing that I could see was Angela's face. Those blue eyes that had drawn me to her when I was barely a teen. My tongue cleaved to the roof of my mouth, but I managed to pry if off to say the three words that had been pulling at me for years.

"I love you." I said, and then again, "I love you, Angela Ziegler." For a moment that seemed to span eternity, we just sat there looking into each other's eyes. Then, Angela leant forward, put her hands on my face, and grinned the widest grin that I could have ever imagined on her face. 

"Gott in himmel, it took you long enough." She whispered, before leaning her head against mine.

"Does that mean?" Angela smiled, a tiny smile this time. 

"It does."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this story has gotten over a thousand hits. That's not big to a lot of people, but that's big to me, so I would like to thank you all for reading.


	7. Locked Out

My eyes opened, and the unfocused world slowly became clear. I was lying in my bed, covers wrapped around my legs, staring up at the ceiling where a protective charm hung on a rope, dangling just over my head. It had been a gift from my mother, one that she had given to me back when I had lived here in the first place. 

The three tails that hung off of the charm dangled down toward my face, lazily furrowing in the slight breeze that came through the open window, letting in the sound of the ocean as waves crashed against rocks, and gulls cawed from some place far away. 

My eyes went from the charm above me, before sweeping around the room in an attempt to conjure up a memory of what had happened the night previous. My brain was currently hazy, unfocused, deprived of memory by a lack of sleep.  
I sat up, and the covers that had been lying over me fell to pool into ripples of fabric around my waist. 

My hands found their way into the ripples, clenching their edges as I suddenly got lightheaded from sitting up too quickly. I sighed, before moving to swing my legs over the edge of the bed, pushing myself up into a standing position, though with some difficulty, as my legs and brain didn’t want to cooperate with each other at the time.

Once I was standing on my own two feet, I reached down and snatched up the black t-shirt that I tended to wear during the mornings. I pulled the shirt over my head, and then ran my hand down my face as I observed that the shorts that I usually set out next to the bed were not there. A quick glance down revealed that I was already wearing them.

Huh, that’s unusual for me, I mused. Shrugging off the peculiarity, I walked over to the door, and opened it. There was an odd lack of noise in the hallway, considering that this was around the time that everyone else usually woke up. Jack wasn’t making his rounds to ensure that everyone was awake; Reinhardt wasn’t trudging toward the kitchen to make himself breakfast. Perhaps the most disturbing fact of them all was that Jamison’s door was wide open for all the world to see whatever it was that he was doing in there.

Shimada’s door, I noted as I walked by, was still closed. The red light next to the handle indicated that it was also locked. I wasn’t worried about that though, what worried me is the fact that Angela’s door was in the same state. I stood in front of the door, staring down at the lock in confusion. The red light remained, though, even after I shook my head twice to ensure that my brain wasn’t just deceiving my eyes with its lack of sleep. That didn’t seem to be the case; Angela’s door was simply locked.

“Jack!” I yelled then, turning to run down the hall back toward his room, moving like I was under fire, outside of the restraints of the heavy suit I wore during combat. I sprinted down the hall, turned a corner, and then skidded to a halt in front of my commanding officer’s door. 

I banged my fist against the metal door two, three, four times before stepping back. One second passed, I tapped my foot against the ground impatiently despite the fact that it couldn’t have been more than a second since I had knocked. Another second past, my eyes wandered down the door until they came to rest on the light next to Jack’s door. Red, just like Angela’s, just like Shimada’s.

What about Reinhardt’s? I turned, and did my best to walk calmly down the hall this time, hands at my side as my brain began to formulate all sorts of logical possibilities as to why all of my teammate’s locks could have been engaged, and why Jamison’s door wouldn’t be locked.

The only reasonable conclusion that I could come to is that they were on some sort of operation, but if that was the case why didn’t they inform me before leaving? Why didn’t they wake me, take me along? 

When I came to Reinhardt’s door, I found that it was in the same state as all the others, that red light next to the door staring back at me, as though angrily at the fact that I hadn’t already caught on to the trend, and realized that the door would have been locked.

I cursed, and moved back down the hall, toward the main room of our base, where Jack and I had sat and talked just the night before. The lights in the room were on, but there was no evidence that anyone had been in the room since I had left the night previous. Jack’s device sat on the table right where I had left it, the chair that I had been sitting in was still pushed back from where I had left in a huff. 

Now things were starting to make less and less sense, Jack or Reinhardt would have moved the chair back, at the very least, and the fact that a piece of Jack’s equipment was just sitting out in the open was troubling in and of itself. I approached the table with caution, weary of the device despite the fact that I had used it so eagerly just the previous day.

When I pressed the center button at the bottom of the circle, no map popped up, and no display that showed where everyone was in the world. 

In fact, the device made no indication at all that it was even working. It just sat, lifeless under my touch, reflecting my concerned features back at me in its slate black screen. I picked it up nonetheless, and tucked it into my pocket, before making my way toward the armory. 

I still had no logical conclusion as to what was happening now, but I felt as though I would be safer if I had a rocket launcher in my hands, no matter what it was that was going on, especially if this was some kind of abduction.

The armory, however, was empty. My suit didn’t rest in the case that pushed into the wall along with my launcher; the molds were barren when I pulled the case open. When I checked everyone else’s holds, they too were empty. With this fact now known, I suddenly became aware of just how dangerous of a situation I was in. 

Even if my friends were around here, somewhere, whoever it was that was in our base had a good deal of advanced weaponry, and I had no doubt that whoever it was wouldn’t hesitate to use it.  
I cursed, and made my way out of the armory cautiously, creeping back up the stairs that I had just descended down, when there was a buzz from the device that I had shoved into my pocket moments ago. I jumped the feeling of the sudden vibration against my leg, before pulling the device out. 

There was a message displayed across the screen, that there was an incoming call, even stranger was the fact that it was from Angela. My brows furrowed at the display, as I had no clue that Jack could use this thing as a communicator as well, I thought that was the whole reason for our commlinks, but I pressed the button in the center of the circle anyway.

“Fareeha, are you alright?” Angela’s voice came over the speaker that didn’t seem to have a definitive place in the anatomy of the device, but I wasn’t too worried about discovering where the sound was coming from, I was more worried about the fact that I had no clue where Angela was.

“Yes, yes, I’m fine.” I replied, slightly relieved at the fact that her voice didn’t hold any tone of fear in it, though there was a distinct twinge of worry. “Are you?” There was hesitation on the other end of the channel, but then Angela came back over.

“Of course I am, why wouldn’t I be?”

“Because your door is locked, so is everyone else’s, and I have no clue where you are.” Again, there was a pause on Angela’s end before she responded.

“Fareeha, I’m right outside of your door.” When I heard that, I pressed the button again and bolted back toward my room, feet pounding against the floor until I reached the hall where my room was. I expected to see Angela outside of the door, maybe leaning against the wall, but there was nobody there. I looked down at the device, pressed the button to see if I could get a response to Angela somehow, but there was no display. I cursed at the fact that I had hung up, but the device vibrated again, thankfully.

“You aren’t outside my door.” I informed Angela, standing directly in front of the now-locked door as I spoke to her. “I’m standing right there.” Without a word, the channel disconnected, and I looked down at the device in surprise, had Angela really just hung up on me without informing me of where she had gone off to? I was about to call her back, when I felt a hand on my shoulder. I looked to the side, but there was nobody there.

I was about to question the origin on the sensation, but then I suddenly jolted up, eyes snapping open as my head nearly collided with Angela’s, who leant back fast enough to avoid the pseudo-hammer that was my head. I leant forward, the cold sweat that had broken out all over my body causing the slight chill in the room to be magnified. 

From what I could tell, it wasn’t yet morning, as the view outside of my window was still dark. It took me a moment, but I also realized that there was a gentle hand resting on my back. I turned, and finally realized fully that Angela was sitting on the edge of my bed, gently running her hand down my back.

“Are you alright, Liebechen?” She whispered, and I reached down, holding the sheets in a tight grip before I nodded.

“Just a….just a bad dream.” I assured her, biting my lip after I spoke. Angela sighed, and leant forward, putting an arm around my waist as she put her head on my shoulder. She didn’t speak, only allowed the hand that had been resting on my back to drift down and then back up in an attempt at comfort. 

"Do you want to tell me what the dream was about?" She whispered in my ear after a few minutes of this, and I sighed, leaning over and resting my head against hers, her platinum hair mingling with my own ink black.

"I dreamt that you were gone." In the faint light of the room, I could see a tiny smile form on Angela's features. 

"Already dreaming about me?" She asked, leaning back before moving her hand to my cheek. "That's cute." I felt the blood rush to my face, and moved away from Angela. 

"It's not cute." I shot, and Angela giggled a light, flitty sound before gently moving my face so that she could look into her eyes.

"You have no reason to worry, I'm right here." Angela leant her head against my chest, put both arms around me, and I couldn't help but smile, and returned the gesture. 

We stayed like this for a few moments, my arms wrapped loosely around Angela, her own embrace tight around my chest. "Why don't we have a few drinks?" She proposed. "That always helps settle the nerves." I cocked a brow at the proposition.

"Angela, it can't be past two in the morning." I chuckled. The Swiss woman chuckled in response, and leant back to look up at me. 

"Well, that just makes it more fun, doesn't it?"


	8. Burning

At two, correction, three, in the morning, I was already averse to drinking. Wine was an automatic out, due to just how much I had to drink, beer would have been manageable. However, while I sat at the table where I had grabbed the communicator just the day before, Angela grabbed a bottle out of a small cabinet above the refrigerator. I cocked my brow, and Angela set down the bottle of amber liquid between us, before setting down two doubles that she had been carrying in her other hand.

"Woah." I chuckle, and leant back, swinging one arm over the back of the chair as I crossed my leg. "I think it's a little late, er, early, to be drinking whiskey." Angela cocked a brow at me as she poured the liquid into the doubles. "Last I checked it had to be like, five, yeah?" Angela turned, looked over her shoulder to the clock on the stove.

"If you'd like to wait for two hours, I'm fine with that. If you'd rather just start, it's five o'clock somewhere." Angela set the glass down in front of me, and I glanced down at the rich amber liquid that blended with the wooden finish on the table.

"Are you sure about this?" I asked, picking up the glass while doing so. The amber liquid rocked against the side of its container, threatening to spill over. "I still don't think it's the smartest idea." Angela rolled her eyes, and took a sip of her drink. 

"When you're up at all hours of the night, you learn how to drink at weird times." Angela replied before taking another sip, rapidly following the first. Not one to be bested, I took a larger drink of my own glass of whiskey, the liquid burning my throat is it slid down and causing me to inhale deeply as the burning quickly spread up into my sinuses before dissipating just as quickly as it had come. 

"I don't see how you do this and don't have a hangover most mornings." I said after setting my glass back down, returning to my original posture while Angela smiled. 

"Like I said, you get used to these things. Maybe you'll develop that ability as well, with time." I glanced down at the glass of whiskey in front of me, and wondered how often Angela expected me to do this with her. It wasn't exactly a frequent occurrence for me to have nightmares, after all. "Or, maybe not." Angela leant forward, and began to run her finger along the edge of her glass lazily, staring down into the liquid.

"Oh, trust me, if you can do it, I can." Angela chuckled, and sat back, picking up her glass to hold it on her pinky, ensuring it didn't tip by the virtue of the rest of her hand, cradling the glass. "I could drink you under the table any night of the week."

"That so, Süßling?" She asked, swirling the liquid around in her glass lazily. "I beg to differ, I've got at least six years of experience on you, and that's being liberal." I cocked a brow at that implication.

"You think I didn't start drinking until I was eighteen?" Angela smirked. "I started when I was sixteen, I'll have you know." I shot, picking up my glass before taking a long drink this time, the burning liquid rushing down my throat and into my stomach. The burn it left over radiated in my chest and throat, and lingered longer in my sinuses than it had moments ago.

"Ah, so I only have four years of experience on you then." Angela mimicked my own manner of drinking, before putting the glass down. "Four years of nights like these, while I'm sure you only drink once a month, yes?"

"Twice."

"Ah, such a difference that makes." Angela took another drink, again setting the glass on the table. I rolled my eyes, and noticed that Angela's cheeks were already burning bright red, possibly from the influence of the alcohol. I knew my own cheeks felt warmer than usual, many things already becoming less cohesive than usual.

"Why did you wait so long?" Angela asked suddenly just as I took a drink, and I swallowed before raising a brow. 

"What do you mean?" I asked, wiping my lips in an attempt to displace any liquor that lingered there. Angela smiled, leant her head on her hand at a strange angle as she returned to run her finger along the edge of her glass.

"Why did you wait so long to tell me how you felt?" She clarified, and I sighed before looking down into my glass. That was a question that I had been struggling to answer even to myself over the past week. Why had I waited to long to tell Angela how I felt? I couldn't say that it was Shimada the entire time, what with him only being around for the past year or so. In short, it might have been that I just hadn't seen Angela for nearly twenty years. 

"I thought that the both of us might have changed, over the time that we didn't see each other." I took a drink. "Twenty years is a long time, y'know?" Angela shrugged.

"It was only nineteen, but I see what you mean." She looked off into space for a moment. "I did keep up with you, though, when you were in the news. Once that happened I kind of tried to keep track of how you were doing." Angela sighed. "I really had too much time on my hands in my late twenties, didn't I?"

"Well, why didn't you contact me?" I asked, now curious as to the exact reason as to why I had to have been the one to initiate the connection between us. Angela shrugged, and took a drink before answering me.

"I'm not the best with relationships. Like I told you when you were just a girl, I hadn't had a relationship before." I almost spit out the liquor in my mouth before I turned to Angela, putting my glass down quickly.

"You're kidding." Angela cocked a brow at me, silently questioning what I meant. "There's no way you haven't had a relationship before this." I explained, though when Angela's expression didn't change I couldn't stop my eyes from widening. "Really?"

"I'm a very busy woman." Angela replied before finishing her glass. "I didn't exactly have time to go and seek out a relationship, not enough time to establish a social life, either."

"Apparently you had enough time to keep up with what I was doing." I replied, finishing off my own glass before pushing it over so Angela could fill it up when she finished doing the same with hers.

"Well, I was partial to you." Angela replied, smiling. "I was since I saw the first report of you saving all of those people in the hostage situation." I rolled my eyes at the memory. 

"I barely did anything there, if you saw the story you would know that I was basically just a publicity figure." Angela shrugged. 

"You certainly saved some people, that's all that I saw. I was very proud of you that day." I snickered as I took a drink of my refilled glass. "I thought you had gone on to do what I'd advised you to, finally." She sighed. "But then you joined Overwatch." I cocked a brow at her tone.

"You don't seem happy that I joined." Angela shrugged, and took a drink. 

"Trust me, süßling, I am very, very happy that you're here." Angela sat back, and stared down at her glass. "That you're here with me, I mean, that I can call you mine. I just wish that you had gone on to do something different, where you could have helped more people."

"I help people here." I insisted, taking my hand off of my glass to rest it on the edge of the table. "We've done plenty of rescue operations." Angela shrugged, and waved her hand dismissively.

"Nonetheless." She took another drink before continuing, wincing visibly at the burn for the first time. "You could have joined a purely rescue team, I would have liked to see you do that." I smiled to myself at that statement.

"Well, maybe once we've got all of the issues in the world settle, you and I can just go off and save people, rule the skies together, and save all of the people down below." Angela chuckled, but a smile rose on her features.

"I think I would like that very much." She replied, before holding her glass out for a cheer. "To ruling the skies." I smirked, and leant over the table to gently tap my glass against Angela's.

"To ruling the skies."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that this chapter is shorter than normal, I had a lot that I had to attend to today. I wanted to get something out though, for everyone to enjoy. I'll try and put out a longer chapter tomorrow.


	9. Stranded

The helicopter shook and jostled on the way into the combat area, and my eyes remained firmly locked on Angela even though she, similarly, was being thrown around by the impacts that rocked the entirety of our aircraft, though failed to make direct contact. Her fingers were curled tightly around her staff, bruises on her hands still visible, where her gloves failed to cover them. She still had a bruise on her face as well, and a myriad of others covering her body, though her Valkyrie suit presently shielded them all from sight. She looked better than she had two weeks ago, that was for certain, but the very fact that Jack though it was safe to bring her on a mission worried me. She still didn’t walk with the same grace that she had before the fall, still didn’t look like she was a hundred percent in the present, a hundred percent of the time. Even these small things could turn into big changes on the battlefield. 

“Angela, Fareeha,” Jack addressed us from across the helicopter where he sat calmly, even though we were still undergoing heavy fire from the base that we were about to storm. “I want you two to stick together, Fareeha, stay close to her, got it?” I nodded, and Shimada spoke up from the other side of Angela.

“I can stay with Mercy,” he said as his hand ran over the blade that presently rested across his lap. “Fareeha is needed on the front lines for heavy ordinance.” From behind his visor, I couldn’t see Jack’s eyes, but I imagined they were narrowed to a needle point, especially since I didn’t put it past our commander to catch on to what exactly Shimada was attempting to do. He shook his head, and put the butt of his assault rifle down on the ground beneath his feet.

“I want Fareeha with her. With those jet thrusters of hers she’s got a good chance of getting Angela out of trouble, if push comes to shove. You can only move so fast, Shimada.” The aforementioned man sat still on his seat, and stared Jack down from across the way, but finally conceded to follow our commander’s orders. “Alright then.” Jack muttered “Everyone try and stay as close to Angela as you can, without putting her in the line of fire, got it?” There was a muttered agreement, and Angela went to protest before Jack cut her down with a stare identical to the one he had just shot Shimada’s way. 

“You are still hurt.” He addressed Angela now. “I don’t care if you’re walking around, you had a scrape with death, and I’m not risking you having another one.” He stood up as Athena came over the intercom inside of the aircraft, informing us that the door was about to open. Jumping out of the helicopter over the operation zone, my favorite way of going into a mission. We all got up off of our seats, and shuffled over to the door. Reinhardt, as usual, took point. The hydraulics of the door hissed, and the door opened just barely before there was a flash of light, and my ears were ringing as I became aware of the entire world spinning around me. Somewhere in the confusion I heard what I thought was Jack screaming for everyone to hold on, while Jamison laughed madly throughout the entire descent. I couldn’t move throughout this, held down to the bottom of the helicopter by G-force. Then, everything went still with a thunderous thud that threw me up into the air before it sent me colliding back with the floor. 

My ears continued to ring, and for a moment I had to think about where I was as I pushed myself up into a sitting positon, my arm wavering under my weight as I attempted to get into a position to see what was happening. Jamison lay across one of the benches, not moving, but audibly breathing. Jack was just beginning to stand, using the other bench as a support. Reinhardt was nowhere to be seen, neither was Shimada. For a moment, I grew panicked as I didn’t see Angela anywhere, before my eyes fell on her getting to her feet just outside of the helicopter’s blown-open door. She winced visibly as she stood, hand resting on her side. Though my legs shook when I got to my feet, I made my way over to Angela as fast as I possibly could, putting my hands on her shoulders when I got to her side in order to steady her. She looked up at me, and smiled when her eyes fell on me. 

“Are you alright?” I whispered, and she nodded, but winced once more. “Where’s your staff?” Angela looked around, and then cursed when she realized that it didn’t seem to be anywhere close. “It must have fallen out of the helicopter during the crash.” I postulated.

“Looks that way, come on, let’s help Jamison.” Angela moved past me, limping back toward the ruined helicopter. I followed right behind, though with less of a limp to my gait. I put an arm around Angela’s waist in an attempt to help her walk, but she shrugged me off, casting a smirk my way. “I can walk just fine Fareeha, please, have some faith in me.” I bit my lip, but stepped back all the same, giving Angela her space as we stepped back into the helicopter’s hold. Together, Jack and I got Jamison sitting up straight on the bench. He had a gash across the top of his head, which left a curtain of blood down his face despite the fact that the flow seemed to have stopped already. 

“Reinhardt took the brunt of the hit.” Jack informed me as he stepped back from Jamison, allowing Angela to move in and check his wound. “Him and Shimada, by the look of it, fell out during the crash, not sure when, or where.” I looked back outside of the hold, and realized that I wasn’t even entirely sure of where we were.

“How far off course are we?” I asked as I took note of the forest that was about forty feet away from where the helicopter had crashed. Last time I checked, the place we were supposed to be assaulting wasn’t that close to a forest. We must have been higher than I thought when we took the hit. 

“Pretty far.” Jack informed me. “We’ll have to go through the swamp in the forest to get back to the base, hope that we can link up with Reinhardt along the way.” I went to ask him as to why he didn’t just use his communicator, but Jack took the initiative, and showed me that his device had been shattered during the crash, now in three pieces that didn’t even look as though they really went together. 

“Damn.” I muttered, and Angela shot a glare over her shoulder that told me not to curse. I shot my own glance back at her in response before looking back to Jack. “So, what’s the plan boss? Besides going to try and find Reinhardt, anyway.” Jack shook his head, and picked up his rifle, which also seemed to be cracked by the landing. 

“We have to find Shimada as well, may I remind you.” I shrugged, and apologized for my forgetfulness. I really hadn’t intended to forget about Shimada, it just so happened that I didn’t care about him as much as I did about Reinhardt. The fact that he had been hitting on my girlfriend for the past year or so didn’t help his case any. “We’re just going to have to hope that we can find a way to contact Athena, see if she can get a half-decent lock on their trackers.” He said as he put his arm under Jamison’s and hoisted him to his feet. Angela protested the action, but Jack just shrugged at her words. “We need to get moving.” He informed her. “Someone’s going to come for us, sooner or later. I’d rather not be here when they do.” I nodded in agreement, and held my hand out to Angela, who winced when she stood. 

“Just lean on me.” I asserted, and she pouted as she looked up at me with those icy blue orbs. “You’re hurt, just, please.” With a sigh, Angela leant up against me, and I put my arm around her waist in a manner similar to the way Jack was carrying the unconscious Australian. She put her arm around my neck and held herself upright as we went. We stepped out of the cargo hold, and into the open air of the night. There was a slight breeze, cool against my face as we went which only accentuated the feeling of Angela’s hair tickling my skin.

“Stick close together.” Jack advised as we made our way into the tree line. “If we get separated, then just try and make it somewhere safe, then get in contact with anyone that you can, even if it’s one of the other strike teams, understood?” Angela and I both nodded, in response and he nodded as though to affirm our own confirmation. 

“Then what though?” I asked. “How are we supposed to know if any of you are even alive.” Jack hummed to himself as he mulled over that question. 

“Just come back and raid the base, I’m going to guess that these mercs know who we are, and would rather offer the lot of us up for ransom, rather than kill us.” I narrowed my eyes at that suggestion, as I knew for a fact that criminals and mercenaries would rather have us dead, that way they wouldn’t have to worry about us interfering with whatever it was that they were doing. I didn’t voice that fact though, as I knew it would probably just worry Angela. Then, again, she probably knew that just as well as I did. 

“If it comes down to it.” Anglea whispered as we continued through the forest, doing our best to move quietly even though Jamison’s feet were dragging the ground, moving over dying leaves and fallen twigs. “I want you to leave me behind, so that you can get to safety.” I smirked at that suggestion.

“If you think I’d ever leave you behind, then you’re absolutely out of your mind.” I responded, hefting my rocket launcher to take some of the stress off of my shoulder, which now burned from the exertion of keeping the launcher level as I slowly moved it over the terrain in front of us, just in case we ran into any hostiles in the forest. Then again, a rocket launcher might not have been the best weapon to use when we were in a situation when fighting would be as close as the trees were spaced. 

“Please.” Angela pled, though still quiet enough that Jack wouldn’t be able to hear her demand. 

“No, and that’s final.” I stopped for a moment, and looked down at Angela to ensure that I had her full attention. I noted that she had withdrawn her pistol from where it rested on her hip, and held it limply against her leg. “I have watched you fall before, nearly seen you die, I’m not going to leave you behind to die, if anything, I’m going to make sure that you are the one who lives.” With that, I took another step forward, but Angela dug her heels into the ground to stop me. Jack seemed to take notice that we had failed to keep up with him, because he turned and asked in a hushed tone if everything was alright. 

“We’re fine.” I assured him, and looked down at Angela. “Let’s go.” I whispered, and despite the anger that I could see brewing just beneath the surface of Angela’s usually calm eyes, she just nodded in agreement before we began to follow directly behind Jack once more, keeping just a few steps behind so that we could move into separate cover should we come under fire. 

Our going was slow, and throughout the entire trek through the forest, I could only think of one thing, and that was the way Angela had looked, crumpled on the ground when she had fallen out of the sky. I had been so scared, and she must know that now, yet here she was, telling me that she wanted me to effectively leave her for dead. On the flip side, I was telling her I would die myself before I did that. 

It seemed like we were more likely to die together than any other alternative.


	10. Sole

The door opened, and I looked up from the space on the table where my eyes had been locked for an unknown amount of time. Standing in the doorway, holding the door that she had just come through open, was Tracer. She wasn't wearing her signature suit right now though, instead opting for athletic shorts and a t-shirt underneath her harness. The pale blue light still burned radiant, offering much more illumination than the dull light that hung over me.

"Oi, Fareeha." She greeted, her voice quiet as she walked over to where I sat, moved the chair opposite of me so that she could sit down. I didn't acknowledge her greeting, instead just leant forward and put my head in my hands, the loose fabric of the shirt that had been given to me upon arrival sliding up my arms.

"Why am I still just sitting here?" I asked, and before Tracer could answer, I clarified. "Why are we still sitting here? What's Winston waiting for?" I ran my fingers down my face, and turned my gaze back to Lena. She bit her lip, and hesitated for a moment before answering.

"He's trying to figure out if we can feasibly mount a rescue attempt." I stood suddenly, and slammed my hands down on the table, causing the whole thing to shake while also making Lena jump almost out of her chair.

"If you won't do it, then I'll do it alone. Tell him that if he doesn't have a helicopter ready, or if we aren't leaving, in the next thirty minutes, then I will just take a car and go." Lena cocked her brow at that assertion.

"Without your suit? Fat chance." I narrowed my eyes, and leant back, crossing my arms over my chest as I did so. "Angela wouldn't want you to do that anyway, don't you know that?"

"Don't talk to me like you know what Angela would want, Lena." I shot. "Besides, she's not here right now, and that's what I have to fix; so I'm going to do whatever it takes to do that, suit or no suit." Lena sighed, and leant back in her chair.

"Y'know, I never expected you to be the one that would do all this." Before I could ask what she meant exactly, the Brit explained her statement. "You're always focused on the mission, all this emotion just seems kinda strange coming from you." She shrugged. "Just a thought." She had me there, I was supposed to be the one focused on the mission, not on my emotions. 

"I'm focused on my mission." I informed her. "It just so happens that my mission is to get Angela back, all the others will come in that process too, I assure you." Tracer looked my way, and shrugged. 

"I'm just worried about what'll happen if you can't do both." I scoffed, and Lena's eyes narrowed. "I'm serious, you won't put someone else's life before Angela's, and we both know that. If I was to go with you, along with the rest of the team, you wouldn't worry about us."

"Don't act like you would worry about the team if you were in my situation. I know for a fact that we would do the exact same thing." Lena shook her head at that statement, and crossed one leg over the other, mimicking the gesture with her arms.

"That's where you've got me all wrong. I'm on the up and up with Emily, but I wouldn't give up anyone on this team for her." I scoffed at that statement, and went to refute it, before Lena held up a silencing finger, begging for a moment to explain. When she saw that I would allow this, she leant forward, and put her chin into the palm of her hand. 

"Emily means a lot to me." She explained "but this team is my family, even more than that, they're the people that can save the world." She sighed "Emily may be able to help me, but she's no Winston, she can't exactly do all this crazy sciency stuff that I can't even begin to understand. The world needs Winston, the world needs Jack, and you." Seeing where Lena was going with this, I stepped out from where I had been standing behind the table.

"The world," I stressed "needs Angela. She's still one of the brightest medical minds in the world, so I'd say she's pretty damn important." Tracer shrugged, but nodded.

"And I'm not saying she isn't, I'm just saying that you have to know what sacrifices need to be made. I don't think that trading you, Jack, and Winston would be a fair trade for Angela. You have to realize, she wouldn't find that fair either." I frowned, and my hand clenched into a tight fist where it rested on the table.

"Frankly, I don't give a damn if she would find it fair. I didn't get asked if it was fair when Angela activated my jets and sent me careening out of the jungle, I didn't get asked if it was fair when those bastards in that base took her," my breath came heavily now, and I yelled the last statement "I didn't get asked." Lena sat there, seemingly unfazed by the sharp incline in my volume.

"You're just proving my point." Was all she said and, with a huff, I went to walk past her. Before I could, Lena stood up, and held out a hand to stop me.

"Let me go." I shot. "I'm going to get Angela back, with or without all of you." Lena frowned, and stepped back so that she could look me in the eyes.

"You're going to get yourself killed if you go back in there, especially without your suit."

"Then give me my suit back." I ordered, and Lena shook her head.

"Winston said that it was too damaged for use by the impact, I'm sorry."

"Fine," I snapped "then I'll just go in without it. I don't care if I get shot up as long as I get Angela out of there and to safety." I stormed past Lena, who blinked in front of me in order to cut off my path once again.

There was a moment of silence, and then Lena just sighed. "I'm not going to let you go alone. Let me talk to Winston, at least." I scowled, glanced at the clock hanging on the wall.

"You have five minutes."


	11. The Trooper

The engine hummed as it carried out its fuel-injecting process, the wheels glided silently over the pavement; my eyes were glued to the road, yellow hash marks disappearing out of my line of sight every second or so as I sped down the road.

"How in the hell did I let you talk me into this?" I glanced to the side, where Tracer sat in the passenger seat. Her arms were crossed over her chest, one foot resting on the dashboard of the car, toe tapping impatiently against the polished surface.

"I didn't talk you into anything." I turned my attention back to the road, grip tightening around the wheel as I watched it swiftly disappear in front of me, only to seemingly stretch on into infinity ahead of the car. A quick glance at the speedometer revealed that we were traveling at upwards of ninety miles per hour, but I still felt that we weren't going fast enough. "You got into the car."

"Well, you're the one who insisted on going after Angela, even if it meant going alone, so you kind of did rope me into this love." I shrugged at the assertion, my eyes now glued to the road. Some illogical part of my brain said that if I just watched the road I would get to Angela faster, even if it was at least a three hour drive. Even going at such a ridiculous speed, it would still take a good while to reach the base. 

"If only you knew how to fly a helicopter." I muttered, tightening and loosening my grip on the steering wheel every couple of seconds. "We could have been there already." To accentuate my point, I stepped further down on the pedal, sending the needle on the speedometer climbing up to a hundred miles per hour, and rapidly climbing even higher. 

"If you don't slow down," Tracer cautioned, "you're going to get the both of us killed." I grit my teeth at that, glanced down at the speedometer again, and let my foot off of the acceleration until the needle descended back to ninety. Lena seemed to relax in her seat, leaning back into the chair with a sigh. "That's better."

"We could be doing much better on time if you would let me go faster," I sniped "besides, aren't you the one who's all about speed?" Lena looked at me with a cocked brow, reaching up to play with the long strand of hair that hung down nearly to her eyes.

"Oh, I'm all about speed love, for certain. Thing is, I'm safe when I'm on the speed. Going a hundred miles on the highway isn't exactly the smartest course of action. Eyes on the road, by the way." At the prompting, my gaze snapped back to the eternal plane of the road that stretched out in front of me. "And we could have taken a helicopter, you just would've had to wait a few hours." I scowled at that assertion.

"I don't know if we would have had those few hours, in addition to the time it would have taken to fly there. For all I know, we're already too late." My fingers curled around the steering wheel tight enough that my knuckles turned white at that thought. I couldn't be too late, not with Angela on the line. I had made a promise to her, and I couldn't go back on it. 

"Well, I would have felt a lot better with the backup." Lena muttered, picking up one of her pistols, thankfully on safety, before she began twirling it around her finger lazily as a means to entertain herself. "But, I guess I can't blame you for wanting to go after Angela." I cocked a brow, though kept my gaze on the road so as not to earn a scolding from Lena once more. 

"I thought you told me that you wouldn't have gone after Angela if you were me." Lena scoffed, leant her head against the window. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her turn to look my way. 

"I told you that I wouldn't put Emily above my team. Now that you're basically just putting yourself on the line, I guess I can't really say anything against you, besides the fact that you dragged me along." I went to offer a rebuttal to that statement, but Lena just chuckled and held her hands up. "I know, I know, I zipped into the car when you were already pulling out, not much you could say to deter me at that point." I shrugged.

"I'm glad to have you on my back, Lena." I addressed the Brit, who smirked. 

"Aw, you getting soft on me then?" I shot a glare her way before almost instantly snapping it back to the road. "That may be the first nice thing you've said to me." I scoffed, and, again, went to offer a rebuttal. Then, I realized that my previous statement may actually have been my first pleasant one to Lena, which brought back memories of the brief time we had been on the same strike team.

"I just didn't like living with you." I offered. "You're fine on the battlefield, better than Shimada, at the very least." Lena snickered, and set down the pistol that she had been twirling around her finger for the past few minutes.

"Don't act like you aren't biased against him." She teased, her voice holding that childish tone that I had grown so used to during the time that we had worked together. "Just because he has the hots for your girl doesn't mean he isn't a good soldier." I rolled my eyes at that assertion.

"He isn't a good soldier." I argued "He always seems to fight for himself, he doesn't put the mission first." I almost instantly realized the irony of that statement, given the situation in which I currently found myself. "Refrain from comment on that." I muttered, leaning forward toward the wheel. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Lena's suddenly excited features drop, and she lowered the finger that she had raised as though to scold me.

"Aw." She muttered "why'd you have to kill the fun?" She turned, crossed her arms over her chest, and pouted next to me as she stared out of the windshield. "Not like we'll be able to have much for the next few hours, with you maybe getting me killed in all." I again rolled my eyes.

"Not like you couldn't just go back in time and erase all of the damage to yourself." I asserted, and Lena shrugged next to me. "What was that? You could do exactly that." 

"But I shouldn't have to do that, especially not with that destabilizing me if I do it too much. Come on, Fareeha, you remember how much Jack scolded me about that during our time." Gods, I hated the way she referred to that time just a few months ago as though it was years. 

"Well, just, avoid getting shot. Zip around the place." I said, making a sort of zig-zag line with my finger in the air. "They can't shoot what they can't see, yeah?" Lena shrugged.

"That makes me sick, but I guess it is better than being dead." She admitted. "Just, try and keep me covered so I can avoid getting shot as much as possible." I raised my hand in a silent acknowledgment of the request. 

"So....." Lena trailed off after a few moments of silence. "How did you finally tell Angela about everything?" I cocked a brow and cast a sidelong glance her way, which instantly earned me a reprimand from the Brit, who seemed to have suddenly gained a comprehensive idea of responsibility. 

"I just....kinda told her." I admitted. "The opportunity just fell into my lap, I guess." Literally, but on my chest, if I was to be exact. My heart hammered in my chest at the memory of that night, even more so at the very beginning of the thought that Angela might be hurt right now. Lena hummed to herself, and stayed silent for a moment.

"Well, are you going to give me any details, or am I going to have to pry them out of you?" I bit my lip, debating if I should tell Lena the exact circumstances, considering how strange and stalkerish I would probably sound when I did explain them.

"I just....I was with Angela at a concert, in the town by the base. She got pushed by someone that was just a bit too rowdy, and I caught her. I felt like it was the perfect time to tell her, so I did." Lena chuckled. "What?"

"Oh come on, that's really how it happened?" I narrowed my eyes, and nodded. Lena, from what I saw in my peripheral vision, shook her head. "Oh, that's so tame. I expected it to be something really brutal, especially coming from you. I expected it to be in the heat of battle or something crazy, not at a concert." She sighed "You disappoint me Fareeha, I was expecting a good story." I felt a hint of anger rush up in me, but bit my tongue before I said anything out of turn, reminding myself that she was helping me get Angela back, if nothing else.

"Well, how did you and Emily meet?" I asked in an attempt to turn the conversation on Lena, who laughed.

"Oh, it's a lot more interesting than a concert I assure you." I took my hand off the wheel briefly to give her a gesture to go on, to which Lena happily obliged. 

"Well, let's see, I was out on a patrol one night." For the while, Lena droned on about all of the details about how she met Emily, not sparing me a single detail. Thankfully, she managed to kill a good amount of time because, by the time she had finished, we were about half an hour from the base. Within a few minutes, we arrived at the edge of the jungle, and stepped out of the car.

"Guess we're legging it from here?" Lena asked, and I nodded as I went around to the back of the car, pulling an assault rifle similar to Jack's out of the trunk. "Think you can carry that thing all the way there?"

"Part of my training, I'll be able to carry it as long as I need to." I asserted before shutting the drunk with a slight bang. In my head, I briefly imagined that I must have looked like some sort of old movie action hero, walking into danger to save the one that I loved. 

"I'm coming Angela." I muttered as I stepped foot back into the jungle that I had been in less than twenty four hours ago. "I'm coming for you."


	12. Jaguar

The humidity of the jungle plastered my hair to the back of the neck, despite the fact that I had tied it up before Lena and I had walked into the warm environment. The trees around us swayed with a slight breeze, one that did little to ease the heat that saturated the entirety of the air despite it being the dead of night.

"How are you not burning up in that thing?" I asked, nodding to the jacket the Lena wore as we walked through the jungle together like we were on some sort of Sunday stroll. Lena glanced down at the jacket as though she had been unaware of its presence this whole time, and she shrugged. 

"No clue, really, that might have something to do with the whole Chronal dissociation thing." I cocked a brow at the explanation, but didn't question Lena further, I had better things to focus on. Still, despite the fact that I wore only a sleeveless shirt and pants that had been supplied by the resident Russian at the base, I was burning up. Fucking Brit, I thought to myself.

We trudged through the jungle under the cover of night, creatures our of sight making noises that kept me on my toes throughout the entirety of the trek, even more so than the idea of mercenaries coming upon us. At this point, I would have rather had them on us rather than an animal, at least if mercs were on us then there would be less near Angela. Throughout the entire trek, I was actually calculating the chances of a successful rescue. Assuming Tracer and I performed as well as five regular soldiers, as a conservative number, then it was at least a one to ten ratio that we had going on.

"You hear anything?" I asked Lena, hefting the rifle I carried into a more comfortable position as I asked. The British woman shrugged, craned her ear toward the jungle, and then shook her head.

"Nada," she tsked "shame, I wanted to try and even out the odds, by a little, at least." I scoffed at that assertion, as I doubted that these mercs would send out more than ten of their fighters on a patrol. Hell, if Angela hadn't interfered then I probably would have been able to take care of the patrol that had come upon us initially. That is, if I hadn't been carrying her, and if Jack hadn't been carrying Jamison. Then again, I wasn't sure how helpful the Aussie would have been, hell, he might have done more harm then help with the way that he fought.

"Well," I glanced Lena's way, "I guess that'll just make storming then base more interesting?" Lena chuckled, and started twirling her pistol around her finger once more. It made a slight whirling sound as it moved through the air, like a revolver in a Western movie, making me thing of Jesse.

"This seems like something the cowboy would have enjoyed." I asserted, and when Lena glanced my way, I just nodded to the gun trick that she was performing. She chuckled in response, and blew at the barrel as though she had just fired a shot before sliding the pistol back into its holster.

"Having Jesse here would have been wicked." Lena agreed. "He always was one for dramatics and the like, I'm sure he would've loved a classic love story like this." I shot daggers at Lena, and she chuckled nervously as she held up her hands. "Just being honest, don't shoot the messenger, yea?" I rolled my eyes at that request. At this point, I would hardly consider Lena a messenger.

"I want to get everyone back," I insisted "not just Angela." There was a pause, silence during which the only sound was our footsteps as they pounded down the jungle's dirt beneath them. "Though, if it comes down to it, I will save just Angela." I murmured. Again, silence. I thought about explaining myself, but knew that Lena and I had already gone through this, I didn't think she would blame me if that was to happen that night. 

By the time the first guard tower came into view, the sun was just beginning to peek over the horizon, orange and yellow blazing their way through the lingering darkness. It seemed that the guard wasn't paying much attention to his station, as Lena and I made it to a small overlook, and observed the base from there. "So," the British woman began, "any clue as to where Angela and the rest of them are in there?" I shook my head in response before getting down on one knee, using my assault rifle as a sort of support the same way that I had seen Jack do countless times during our time together.

"Jack didn't have much in the way of schematics when it came to this place, we were kind of just firing blindly we when came in here anyway, not attempting a rescue." Lena nodded, and sat down next to me, swinging her legs over the side of the rock that we had come to rest on, tapping her heels against the side in a rhythm that only she seemed to hear. 

"Well," she cocked her head to the side, "are you ready to go in there?" I glanced up, and scanned the area with narrowed, attempting to discern if there was any visible indication as to where the rest of my team had been taken when entering the base. There were no tracks in the dirt courtyard, no obvious increase of security in any area that I could see, which essentially put me in the dark.

"Not yet." I muttered, still looking for any clue as to where they had gone. "I want to try and create a diversion first, at least, draw their attention away from Angela and everyone else." Lena chuckled, and glanced over her shoulder with a cheeky grin.

"You want a distraction, love? Well, it really is a good thing that you brought me along. I'm the best distraction around. Cheers." Before I could say anything Lena disappeared with a rush of air and a sound like someone swiping a fly swatter through the air. I cursed, but seconds later there was a hail of gunfire, and everyone that I had seen milling around headed toward the front gate.

With that, I made my move.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that this chapter is so short, I've had a lot on my plate over the last few days, but tomorrow I should be free again. Thanks to that, I should be able to make up for the couple of short chapters with a longer one.


	13. Execute

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry that I have not uploaded over the past couple of days. That has been for a few reasons, namely work and attempts to work on another project. As this is the weekend, I will try and double upload longer chapters tomorrow, and probably a single, very large, chapter on Sunday. On that note, I hope you enjoy this chapter.

Going under the fences that surrounded the compound was not an option. The ground beneath the fence, similar to the top, was ringed with a heavy helping of razor wire. At the top, however, there seemed to be less of the spindly substance. I took that as the better approach, less chance of injury. I let my rifle drop when I hit the fence, my fingers finding the holes in the fence, fingers curling into the intertwined metal. Just like in my military training, I ascended the fence with little hesitation. When I got to the wire, I did my best to slow down, but also ensured that I moved fast enough to avoid the razors that bit at me as I moved by them. 

Unfortunately, the complete wall that I ran into gave me barely any sort of movement when it came to avoiding injury, and so I just pushed through the wire. I hissed in pain, but the sound was covered by the gunshots that were still ringing on the opposite side of the compound. The shirt that I wore was cut to ribbons, and snagged on the wire as I attempted to push my way through it. With a grunt, I pushed forward, and the shirt tore completely, leaving it as a sort of tattered cutoff. When I put my hand on the other side of the wire to steady myself, I lost my balance, and pitched forward.

The impact with the ground sent a jolt through my entire body, but I bit my tongue to arouse as little suspicion as possible. A quick assessment revealed that I definitely had taken my fair share of the razors. This left me with a shirt that had formerly been lightly colored, now enveloped in crimson. Likewise, my blood stained my skin, mostly on my abdomen. From what I could tell, nothing vital had been torn or nipped, but I was no Angela. Besides the lacerations, I didn't see any significant injuries caused by the fall.

"Fuck." I hissed through gritted teeth as I pushed myself to my feet, pain shooting through the numerous thin cuts that now dotted not only my torso, but also the tops of my legs. I ignored the pain that ignited in my body, though, and hefted my rifle, moving quickly across the asphalt that separated me from the main compound of the base. The wind whistled around me as I ran, the sound of gunshots dominant in my ears. The sound drove me forward, even with the logical knowledge that the guards were shooting at Lena, and not me.

A loud ping, and a spark sent an opposing message through my mind, I was definitely being shot at now. The most unfortunate part about that, was that there wasn't the slightest bit of cover around me. So, instead of throwing myself down on the floor to essentially give the enemy a still target, my pace increased. I bolted for the nearest piece of cover, a tiny shack that may have been a supply shed of some persuasion. Once I got a few feet away, I dove for the cover, rolling once I hit the ground to give myself the extra inches needed to get behind the wall. 

I hesitated behind the wall for a moment, listened to the sound of bullets as they pounded against the wall, before suddenly ceasing. I drew a breath, and poked my head out, returning fire on the enemies who had seemingly lost their interest in the target that they had just been pursuing. No sooner had I poked my head out that bullets started flying my way again, the sounds of gunfire again consuming the space between me and the men on the opposite side of the small courtyard. With the return fire, I returned to my cover, breathing now heavy as my eyes now searched for an escape route.

I cursed under my breath, and pushed myself to my feet, holding my rifle close as I pushed myself up with my legs, back against the wall. Blood dropped off of my arms in rain-like drops, creating tiny puddles on the ground beneath me. The lack of blood was getting to me, making everything somewhat shifty, but I hadn't come charging into the jungle like an action hero just to stop because of a little blood loss.

Like a sprinter off of the blocks, I bolted for a side door of the main facility the moment that my eyes fell on the surface. It was a short distance from the wall I was currently crouched, but that didn't mean that the enemy wasn't going to make that short distance a living hell. Shots whipped past me as I ran, my own rifle firing as many rounds as I could possibly send down range. My adrenaline was in full swing now, keeping me moving despite the nagging fear in the back of my head, and the blood loss that was rapidly getting to me. I hit the door, which, thankfully, swung in at my weight.

Once through the door, my feet didn't stop pounding the floor, propelling my forward through unfamiliar space. The logical side of my brain, the one currently being overshadowed, said that there was no time to stop running, that those mercs were right on my heels. I cursed as I hit a hallway, and the world suddenly tilted. The ground rushed up, and I just barely managed to break the fall with my arms, sending a jolt up both limbs. My rifle clattered to the floor, and skid away from where I landed. I knelt there for a moment, before it registered that there was now a pool of blood rapidly collecting just beneath me, its origin seemingly from my stomach. A probing hand seemed that a bullet had, seemingly, stuck me on the way in. I cursed, and reached out for my rifle.

My fingers curled around the stock of the rifle, and I pulled it closer to me, before grabbing the body and titling it up to use like a support. I got on my knees and then, with shaking legs and a swimming head, my feet. For a moment, I wondered why it was that the enemy hadn't caught me yet, but then it registered that there seemed to be more gunfire outside. Lena, I thought to myself, thank God.

With my British ally providing a distraction, I stumbled forward, now holding my rifle more like a walking stick than the weapon it was intended to be. Each step sent me wavering, caused my head to swim, but I managed to stay on my feet, if only just. The hallway that I had emerged into seemed to stretch on forever. The reflective surface of both the walls and the floor made it seem only that much more surreal, the only thing distinguishing the walls from the floor were the doors set into the walls.

I drifted over to the wall, and leant up against one of the doors. It looked well enough like a prison cell and, if luck was on my side, maybe this would be the one in which Angela was being held captive. With a shaking hand, I pressed the release that rested next to the side, and the door slid open. As luck would have it, this was not Angela's cell. Instead of her calm, gentle face, I was met with a fist to the jaw. I jolted, and that hit put the final nail into the coffin of my consciousness, I tilted back into darkness.


	14. Bound

My eyes slowly drifted open, and, for a moment, I couldn’t comprehensively figure out where it was that I had been taken off to. A quick glance around y surrounding revealed that I didn’t seem to be in the same surreal hallway that the least of my memories indicated I should have been. Instead, I found myself sitting up against what felt like a tree, the rough bark digging into the back of my neck and arms. I groaned as a bolt of pain shot through my head, and when I tried to move, I became fully aware that there were rough ropes tied around my arms. The rough material dug into my arms, rubbing it red, as though they had been there for a long time. For just how long, I couldn’t be sure. 

‘Alright, who tied me up?” I groaned, moving my shoulders in an attempt to at least loosen the ropes that were currently too tight for me to actually move my arms. I grunted with the exertion of the movement, and a moment later I felt a hand come to rest on my shoulder. Then, there was a voice in my ear that I had hoped I would have never heard in this kind of situation. 

“Well, hell there, love.” I turned my head toward the voice, and found that Jamison Fawkes stood next to me, hand on my shoulder. A manic grin split his features, and the gleam in his eyes told me that he was enjoying this much more than he really should have been. “Looks like you’ve got yourself in a bit of a bind.” The aussie said, flicking my ear as he spoke. I glowered at the contact, instinctively flinching away. 

“Let me out of the goddamn ropes, Jamison.” The blonde chuckled as he took a few steps away from me, before plopping down onto the ground, sending a small poof of dust up around him. His grin lingered on his face as he leant forward, and put his elbows on his knees. “Or I swear, I will blow you to high hell.” Jamison chuckled, and cocked his head to the side, reaching up to run his fingers through the wild tresses of his hair.

“Well, with a threat like that, why should I let you out? Besides, I quite like you this way, you’re less……..explosive.” Jamison chuckled at his own pun, and actually leant back, pointing his chin up as he laughed, his shoulder shaking in time with his breaths. While he did this, the anger that I had begun to let build moments ago only swelled in my chest, becoming a sort of flame that rose from my core into my throat. 

“You should let me out, because I have to save Angela.” Jamison stopped laughing then, and pitched forward into his original position once more, this time resting his chin on his palm as he gave me a look that spoke of disinterest. “Please, Jamison, I need to help her.” The Australian smirked, and shrugged. 

“Not my fault, you” he emphasized, putting a finger on my nose “shouldn’t have gotten yourself caught. That, or not gotten yourself shot.” Speaking of, I glanced down to find that the various wounds in my abdomen were gone. I looked up, and started to ask Jamison how it was that he had managed to heal me. Before I could get the question out, the slightly unhinged blonde pulled a large stick out of my peripheral vision, and into my field of view. Not just any stick though, in fact, it was a staff, Angela’s staff.

“Good thing I found this.” He explained with a grin, holding the staff in the same way that Angela did, though it looked strange on his shorter frame. “Or else, you would have been food for the dingoes.” I cocked my brow at the slang, and straightened myself up in my restraints. 

“Well, if you healed me, then you must have a reason for not killing me.” I reasoned, and Jamison stopped toying with the staff, glancing back in my direction. He set the staff down, bottom edge tapping against the ground as he held it like some medieval wizard. “Mind explaining?” Jamison put a finger to his chin, and looked off into space, before shrugging. He didn’t answer my question, instead just went back to twirling the staff around in the tiny clearing.

“Maybe I just thought it would be a waste to see you die. After all, you provided my distraction, yea?” Jamison grinned, and then stopped twirling the staff, holding it across his shoulders as he looked down at me. “So, I owed you one. Bollocks to the rest of the lot.” He leant up against the tree that I was tied to, and put his arms across his chest. “Right now, we’re even.” I looked up at Jamison as well as I could and, for a moment, I wondered just what the deranged man had in store for me. Then, he withdrew a knife from his belt. My eyes instantly locked onto the blade shimmering in the moonlight, and my hands clenched into fists. 

“Woah, hey, let’s not be hasty.” I attempted to reason with Jamison, who leant down close to me, still holding the blade up in a manner reminiscent of a movie serial killer. His grin widened, and he leant close to me, putting his mouth right next to my ear as he spoke. His breath was warm against my ear, only making me want to flinch away moreso than I already did.

“I could do anything I wanted to right now, nobody’s around. I could gut you like a goddamn pig, and nobody would ever know about it. If anyone asked, I would just tell them that you got lost in the jungle, got separated from me.” I cursed mentally, and desperately searched for a way out of this. With my hands tied to my sides, and no weapon in sight, it didn’t seem like I had many options in store. I just watched in terror as Jamison brought the blade closer and closer to my neck, my heart hammering in my chest as the cold steel beckoned me to my death. I was determined not to show this fear to the maniac though, instead looking him right in those crazed, amber eyes of his. 

When the blade should have bit into my neck, instead, I felt the pull of the ropes suddenly lessen around me. I jolted at the sudden lease of my binds, and looked up into Jamison’s manic grin. He stood there, knife still in hand. He reached down then, extending his scarred hand to me where I still sat against the bark of the tree. “Now, you owe me one.” I looked to his hand, and then to the knife in the opposite grip. Then, I reached up and seized Jamison’s hand, before he pulled me to my feet. I pushed Against the tree until I was on my own two feet, and looked Jamison in the eyes. 

“Come with me, help me save the others, and I’ll owe you another.” The Aussie snickered, and crossed his arms over his chest. “Give me the staff, and I’ll get you off of the team once all of this is over.” Without so much as a moment’s hesitation, Jamison handed the staff over, and picked up his grenade launcher from where it had been resting behind the tree. 

“Let’s go get yer lot.”


	15. Abandoned

There was darkness for a moment, the black cloth that had been placed over my eyes obfuscating the entirety of the room around me. It was thick enough that no light could permeate through, not the slightest ray. There was, however, a myriad of sound in the room. Shuffling, as whoever it was that was in the room with me moved about. Accompanying the footsteps was the hum of some sort of mechanical device. What the purpose of the device was, I didn’t have the slightest clue, but by the situation that I found myself in, I could only fear the worst. Along with the piece of cloth covering my eyes, there were also binds covering both of my wrists and ankles, securing me to some sort of metal table, cold against my bare skin where I lay on it. Then, suddenly, there was the sound of a switch being thrown.

My body jolted, and blinding bolts of pain shot through the entirety of my body. My back arched involuntarily, and my eyes widened beneath the cloth, mouth agape. I attempted to scream at the pain that pulsed through me, but only a strangled cry managed to escape my lips, sounding more like a high-pitched whine than anything else. My hands flailed wildly underneath their restraints, sorting for some sort of way to free myself, but they found none. I wasn’t sure how long this continued for, but for all I knew it could have been an hour, or more. Then, there was the sound of the switch being thrown again, and my body hit the table with a dull thud, my muscles relaxing from the tensed state they had endured. 

My breathing came in short, shallow pants, my chest rising and falling rapidly as I attempted to regain some sort of composure, my eyes searching for something, anything to identify who it was that had done this to me. There was no face to latch on to, but moments later a voice permeated through the darkness that had consumed my senses. 

“How was that Ms. Ziegler?” The voice asked, and I felt the table that I was still lying on dip somewhat as someone sat down on the edge. I didn’t answer though, instead pursing my lips to remain defiant despite the aftershocks that still ran through my body, causing me to jolt occasionally. At this, the man who had sat down chuckled, a deep, low sound that almost didn’t sound human. I felt a hand brush against my skin, causing me to attempt to yank back in an effort to get away from the hostile touch. “Certainly seems like you’ve still got some fight left in you. I’d hate to see you lose it.” The man hummed, and I felt warm breath brush against my ear. 

“So, why don’t you tell me where all of your little Overwatch friends are, before things get ugly?” I didn’t respond, not even with a defiant comeback. Instead, I just lay on that table, staring straight forward into the darkness. Another hum, and then the man’s weight left the table. “Shame.” There were a pair of footsteps, and then the switch was thrown again. 

Somehow, the pain was worse this time, as all my muscles contracted at once, sending my body skyward once more. I was able to let out a scream this time, and it resonated around wherever it was that I was being held, like I was being tortured on the inside of a bell. The sound of my own scream echoing back at me only seemed to get louder and louder, until it suddenly tapered off into a whimper, right before the switch was shut off. Again, I hit the table, and lay there panting, my fingers now curling in on themselves. I whimpered as the pain lingered this time, my entire body trying to get away from the binds, to alleviate the pain. 

“Ready to talk, Ms. Ziegler?” I still didn’t respond, but bit my lip, attempting to remain silent for as long as I could, before the switch was thrown again. I trembled as I heard the man take steps back toward the switch, the binds that secured me rattling heavily against the table. Then, it started again. 

This went on four, five more times, and each time the man asked me if I was ready to talk. Each time, I remained silent, doing my best to hold composure, until he sat down on the edge of the table, and sighed. “Y’know, it’s a real shame that your little friend left you behind, you know that?” I didn’t dignify his statement with a response, until he leant over, and rested a hand on my arm. “The Egyptian girl came and got all of your friends, and left you behind. We told her that you were somewhere else, that we had moved you to a different base.” He chuckled, and then sighed once more. “So, if you don’t want to talk, I will just keep doing this gladly, until you break, or until you die.” 

The man’s statement normally wouldn’t have fazed me but, in that moment, I wasn’t thinking rationally. My mind was dominated by pain, rationale having no place in the crazed realm of my current logic. Along with the torture that I had endured, accompanied by the statement, I felt tears swiftly rise into my eyes, and spill over, stopped by the cloth. I looked away from the man, who gently turned my head back toward him.

“Why don’t you just tell me where they are, Ms. Ziegler, and then I can end your pain, at least for a little while.” I took a deep breath, the inhale shaky, and curled my hands into fists. I turned back in the direction where I thought him to be sitting, and said with the most determination that I could muster in my weakened state.

“Over my dead body.” The man chuckled again, and stood. His feet thumped against the floor, and he took steps back toward the switch.

“Oh, Ms. Zielger,” he chuckled again, and then sighed. “that can be arranged.” 

Then, the switch was thrown once more.


	16. Explosive

"So, where's everyone being held?" I questioned Jamison as we clambered through the jungle, not worrying about any outlying patrols from the mercenaries we had just escaped from. Jamison assured me that, from what he had seen, they were a little bit short-staffed at the moment. Of course, he had to accentuate that statement with a morbid laugh of sorts, what I would have expected from the Junker.

"If mem'ry serves, they're roight where I was." The Aussie replied, trundling along with his peg leg putting him slightly off balance on the uneven ground of the jungle. He held his grenade launcher, making me yearn for a weapon of my own, especially if it could actually do some damage. I glanced down at Angela's staff, which I clutched in my hand as a peeudo walking stick, and sighed. In a fight, the best this thing could do was keep Jamison alive.

"Did you see Lena at any point during the attack? Did they get her?" Jamison glanced over his shoulder at me, brow raised, manic smile on his face. Something about that smile made me want to brain the Australian with Angela's staff, but I neglected doing so. At the moment, I needed him, until we got to the others, anyway.

"Yea, I saw 'er, last I checked," the high pitched man paused for a moment, hummed to himself. "Nah, they din't have 'er." Well, that at least gave me some hope that Lena might have gone to get us some help, at the very least. Unfortunately, my communicator had been broke in the initial raid, giving me no way to communicate with the Brit. 

"Why didn't you help her?" I asked as I continued to follow Jamison, staying within swinging distance of the staff. If he turned on me, I wanted to be able to put the Australian out for at least long enough to get some good hits on his head.

"Fuckin' hell." The man whined, before stopping, and turning back to me. "Ye' want me t' save the whole squad while I'm at it?" He paused for a moment with arms outstretched. When I didn't respond, he snickered. "Din't think so." He turned, and hefted his launcher once more. " 'sides, she can keep herself alive." That I couldn't deny, but it would've been nice to have Lena with us for this counterattack.

Fortunately, there was a very distinct sound that alleviated my worries almost instantly. I turned, and found that Lena stood behind me, mischievous smile plastered on her face, pulse pistols braced against her hips. "Someone call for me?" I couldn't help but grin as I set the staff against the ground. Lena looked like she had taken some hits during the last skirmish, but she looked fine now. Reversing time certainly had its benefits.

"You're looking pretty good, for all the shots you took." I said, nodding to the holes in the British woman's jacket and suit. Lena chuckled, and brushed a particularly long strand of hair out of her eyes. 

"You should see the other guys." She joked before walking by me, up to Jamison, who had stopped walking along with us, though he didn't seem particularly happy to have done so. Lena patted him on the shoulder, grinning. "How ya' doin' Jamison? Ready to get out friends back?" The hot-headed man pushed Lena's hands away, glowering as he did.

"Getcha' hands off me." He whined, before pouring. "Real nice reunion we got goin' on, but could we get a move on?" Lena chuckled, but nodded, retreating back to my side.

"Can you do any damage with that stick of yours?" She asked as we started walking, gesturing down to the staff that I held in both hands now. I smirked, and shook my head.

"Not much, might be able knock someone out." I twirled the lightweight staff around, "and that would be with some good will and a lot of luck." Lena chuckled at the assertion, and handed me one of her pulse pistols. 

"I only need one." She assured me when I went to protest. "Besides, if you're going to be carrying your girl, you'll need something to defend her with." Ahead of us, I heard Jamison gag at the sentiment, and Lena rolled her eyes. "He's just mad because Satya isn't here to teleport us ahead." Jamison said something ahead of us at that comment. I didn't catch the exact wording, but I got the gist of the four letter interjection. 

"Did you manage to see anything of where everyone else was?" I questioned Lena as we walked, having tucked the pulse pistol into my waistband now, angled away from anything important. Lena shook her head.

"Didn't see hide nor tail of the lot of 'em, sorry love." I sighed, and glanced ahead to see that we were quickly coming up on the compound. "I would imagine they would be in the same place that Jamison was, yea?" I shrugged. That would make sense, of course. That didn't mean anything, though, these guys could have moved the others around, to somewhere more secure. That took a minute to process, but then I moved forward, grabbing Jamison by the back of his vest before pushing him agains a nearby tree. 

"Why were you not secured?" I growled as the Junker protested to the sudden seizure. I smacked a hand over his mouth as Lena similarly protested, before demanding an answer to the question, and a quiet one. I then removed my hand from Jamison's mouth, and he looked at me like I was the crazy one.

"Hell if I know," he started, but then I slammed him back against the tree, causing his head to crack against the wood. He let out a help at the impact, and Lena demanded to know what this was all about.

"He had nobody guarding him." I explained, this whole time keeping my hand around the Junker's throat. "On top of that, he managed to get his weapon, and Angela's but not mine. I have a feeling that he bargained with the mercenaries to set us up." Lena looked from me, to Jamison, before cutting in.

"I don't think he'd have helped you if that was the case." Lena reasoned, and I cast a glance back in her direction. "He would have just let them do what they wanted with you. I think the fact that he got you anything at all means he wanted to help."

"Yea!" The Aussie exclaimed, and I barked at him to shut up before turning back to Lena.

"Do you trust him?" I asked, and the Brit glanced at the Australian before nodding hesitantly. "Fine." I let the Australian fall, and stalked ahead. "Come on." I called over my shoulder. "I want to get my girlfriend and get the hell out of this jungle."


	17. Finale

"Then what happened?" The question jostled me out of the memory that had been unraveling in the form of spoken word, rather, a story. The little girl on my lap leant forward, hands on my legs as she looked up at me with those big blue eyes of hers, begging for an answer.

"Well, I was about to tell you, if you'd be patient." Adeline leant back into the couch, off of my legs somewhat, and pouted at the teasing tone. She muttered something, bringing a smirk to my face. "What was that?" Before she could answer, Adeline found herself up in the air, held aloft by my arms wrapped around her waist.

"Did you just tease me? Me?" Adeline laughed while she tugged at my arms, though her laughing obviously made it difficult to escape the supposed danger of her aging mother's embrace. 

"Fareeha, what are you doing?" The sound of Angela's distressed tone caused me to stop jumping around. Instantly, Adeline's gaze snapped to where Angela stood in the doorway, cup of what smelled like coffee clutched in her pale hands. 

"Playing." Adeline agreed with my statement, and we both offered a grin in addition. "I was uh, telling her a story, and this one." I pointed to my daughter. "Got impatient, you should really rear her better." Angela rolled her eyes as she strolled forward, bare feet barely making any noise as she walked across the room.

"I would, if I wasn't so busy saving lives." Angela reached up and gently ran her fingers through Adeline's ink black hair, smiling to herself as she did. "Besides, I think she's doing plenty well, aren't you, sweetie?" Adeline ducked out of Angela's touch, and smiled at me. 

"You didn't finish your story." She accused, and I averted my gaze from that piercing stare that was so reminiscent of Angela's.

"Ah, well, you've got me there." I confessed. "But you already know the ending, don't you?" Adeline huffed.

"I want to know how you saved Mommy from the bad men." Angela chuckled, before she set her mug down, and gently retrieved Adeline from my embrace. 

"Was she telling you that story? I thought she would tell you one that was appropriate."

"But Mommy, it was so cool, Uncle Jamison and Aunt Lena helping Mama save you, I want to know how they did it." Adeline then gave her Angela what could only be described as puppy-dog eyes. Angela smirked at the attempt to sway her, but shook her head.

"When you are older, and it is appropriate." Angela shot an accusatory glance my way, stressing the last word of her sentence as she did so. "Then, I will tell you the rest of the story." 

"But I already heard about Mama shooting people."

"Fareeha!" Angela turned on me with a visage of shock, before she let out an aggravated sigh. "Why did you think that was a good idea?" I held up my hands in innocence.

"She asked me to tell her a Story." I explained, and Angela rolled her eyes, but her features softened almost as quick as they had hardened. 

"Well, how about I tell you a more appropriate story." She stressed that appropriate word again, and turned to walk back to the couch, where she sat down with Adeline.

"Like how Mama and I met."

"Mama told me that in the other story." Angela cocked a brow, and glanced my way, causing me to chuckle nervously.

"Yeah, thought that she might like to know that too."

"You're leaving me with no good stories liebechen." I smirked, and shrugged as I shoved my hands into the pockets of the short I was wearing.

"Just think of another good one to tell her." The moment that smirk rose on Angela's features, I knew I had fucked up.

"Adeline, let me tell you the story of the time Mama nearly got us both kicked off of Overwatch."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd like to say that this is not how I intended the story to turn out. I just didn't know how to continue at this point, and I didn't want to leave the story hanging. I wanted to give a glimpse of what Angela and Fareeha have now, and maybe I'll do some more things with this, it all depends.


End file.
